Re: A few questions to prove something to a friend.
Other people have covered the bases pretty well.
The only comment I will make is on the morph question. I'm not 100% sure I understand what he is saying, but you absolutely cannot just put any two normal balls together and get albinos. BOTH snakes must be het for albino, whether you know it or not.
So sure, you can have two normals who are het and not know it and just by accident put them together and maybe get an albino, but if both parents aren't het, forget it. That is why smart people who buy hets always ask for paperwork from the breeder to "prove" the snake is what they say it is. There is no way to tell visually.
For a long time I didn't understand the whole 50%, 66%, 100% thing, but the best I can figure out, certain breedings will produce a clutch of eggs and the odds are 50/50 of any baby being het to whatever color. So, that is where the 50% comes from. Each and every baby has a 50% chance of carrying the color. Of course the only way to find out if it does is by breeding it to another het or a visual of the color.
Other breedings will produce a clutch of eggs and some babies have a one-in-three chance of carrying the color. Hence the 66%. I think that is right. These clutches usually have at least one visual of the color in question. Again, the only way to know if a baby carries the color is by breeding it out.
100% of course means every baby has to carry the color, as in the case of breeding a visual pied to a normal. Although each baby will look normal, all of them carry the pied gene.
Perhaps that might help him to understand the whole morph thing.
Gale
Re: A few questions to prove something to a friend.
Thanks everybody for your responds!
WingedWolfPoison: I DID mean species, I was in school and kind of in a hurry and I didn't think of the word :P And also I meant to put in I said every snake also has its own personality, and when it came to the ball python part I was saying something along the lines of; "A spider is more agressive then a pinstripe, but an albino is the best you can get because they are always nice and never strike" which is something my buddy would say.
Kaorte: Thank you for your post especially! You should have seen his face when he also saw that you were a woman. Jaw dropped, slow yet loud abreviate of the word "crap", and his eyes wideeeee open. I'll definately be looking into BRB's eventually though, I LOVE the colours and I've held quite a few that are extremely calm. I even fed one and it was a great experience :)
Angllady2: I dont really understand the 66% either, but I have alot of time to learn before I even start getting into recessives. Thanks for your response :)
He is still a little bit confused about the whole recessive, co-dom and dominate traits but he's learning, thanks again guys :)