Looking For Some Answers...

I said "i don't think it does". -opinion

You said "it sure does". -absolute statement

Prove it. Give me some examples. With the heat pits example you mentioned, you don't know what the pairings were how would you know if it makes a difference? It sounds like you're just speculating...

Comparing it to humans is a real stretch. Apples to oranges imo. What do you mean that they "inherit more" from their father? Daddy gives 23chromosomes and mommy gives 23chromosomes. Idk what you mean.

maybe we should look at possible mechanisms on how it possibly could make a difference.

humans, like snakes, have a double set of chromosomes.

egg cells and sperm cells only have one set of chromosomes, and in each case, which one gets chosen is completely random. The precursor of a sperm cell has two sets of chromosomes, they get sorted, and then divided, and it actually turns into two sperm cells with each one having one set of chromosomes. With eggs in humans its different because human women are tuned to have 1 baby at a time, so after the split into two eggs, one grows and goes on the move while the other one shrinks and dies, but again, its random.

then egg and sperm fuse, and you are left with a zygote that has two sets of chromosomes, one from mom, one from dad.

There is only one exception where it is different, and thats the sex-determining chromosomes, X and Y in humans and W and Z in pythons. In humans, men have XY and women have XX. All egg cells contain one X chromosome, while half of the sperm cells contain one X chromosome and the other half contain one Y chromosome. So in humans its true that the father contributes more, the contribution of the father will determine the gender of the children.

Now, a prime example of stupid design, in humans lots of information about the immune system sits on that X chromosome, of which women have two (when one is broken, the other one compensates), and men only have one. (if something is broken there, it gets expressed). So quite a few genetic diseases occur very often in men and very rarely in women, best-known example is red/green color blindness. Many men have it, very few women have it.

Anyway, for ball pythons, its clear that for ANY morph sitting on ANY chromosome except for the sex-determining chromosome pair, it wont matter if it came from the father or the mother.


inter-species hybrids open a different can of worms, there also is mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are present in almost all cells and are responsible for energy production, like turning sugars into ATP and NADH/H+ to power the cell. They have their own DNA, and ONLY get passed down from the mother. And the Y chromosome only moves down from father to son. So in inter-species hybrids, if you switch father and mother, the hybrid will get all of its mitochondrial DNA, 100%, from the species of the mother. So in the lion x tiger example, mitochondrial DNA is responsible for the fact that Ligers grow to enormous size and Tigons dont. One exclusively has mitochondrial DNA from tigers, the other version exclusively has mitochondrial DNA of lions. Also, in contrast to DNA in the nucleus of the cell, organisms only have one copy of mitochondrial DNA, this and the fact that sperm cells do not contain mitochondria makes it impossible to mix it between mother and father.

But that doesnt matter in any case other than inter-species hybrids, because in one species, mitochondrial DNA as well as the sex-determining chromosome are incredibly uniform, nearly identical, across the whole gene pool of the species.


Given all that, it is safe to assume that in ball pythons, for any gene / morph that does NOT sit on the sex-determining chromosome pair, it does not matter if it comes from mom or dad. I see no mechanism that would allow it, except for epigenetics, which is a whole different can of worms.

About the anaconda hybrids more specifically: I think i already answered it, but to make it clear, the mother determines which set of mitochondrial DNA all offspring will get. Not to a degree, but to full 100.00 %. Its not surprising at all, it just means that different species of anacondas are evolutionarily so far apart that they have different mitochondrial DNA, just like it is with lions and tigers.

But from that you cannot draw conclusions about any ball python x ball python breedings, since they all have virtually identical mitochondrial DNA.


I rest my case, and would like to again point out that we have one gene where things are different and mysterious: Banana and coral glow.

oh, one thing i forgot...


when it comes to sex chromosomes, pythons are reversed. Males have WW and females have WZ. Here all sperm cells contain one W, and half of unfertilized eggs contain one W and the other half contain one Z. So in python its actually the mother that determines the gender of the offspring. But its still true that only the mother contributes mitochondrial DNA. So here you can say the mother cintributes more.