Question about morph "standards"

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

It does help out but i wanted to know at what point does an animal go from being a really light/dark normal to being an actual morph.

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When we can safely assume a single gene is responsible for the trait. Light and dark coloration could be effected by potentially thousands of genes, each playing their own little part. Morphs are a single gene that cause a trait.

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

How can you visually identify the morph. Not tryin to give anybody a hard time but there is not a whole lot of info i could find on traits a morph MUST have to be considered a specific morph and what traits it CANT have. Best way to compare what im saying is dog breed standards.

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This is completely dependent on each individual morph. I feel pictures speak louder than words most of the time. I mean just with the above examples, fires are lighter in coloration, they have a reduction in black pigment, sometimes have more than normal flames/blushing, sometimes have a head stamp, and homozygous version is a black eyed lucy. Yellow Belly will have the pattern drop down the sides farther than normal, sometimes have more flames/blushing, and sometimes be off color than normal, and homozygous version is a Ivory. Besides a the homozygous version of the genes, you can see all of this with a Google images search of each morph.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Morphs are genetic mutation that alters the phenotype of the wildtype(normal) animal.
Each mutation has a vast array of variation.
For example, a lesser can be more silver and cream or more yellow and brown. It can be more reduced or busy in pattern.
I think there are many variations of 'high quality' animals for a single morph too. Like, I personally think a reduced silvery cream lesser can be just as quality as a reduced yellow one.

And it's not just color. It's the contrast between colors that can improve quality as well, imo.

"High Quality" animals are usually the ones that "WOW" you.
Even the more subtle morphs, a quality animal will look nothing like a normal, where as a low quality animal could look very much like a normal.


In regards to your example of pastel. A quality pastel will be bright yellow contrasting with the black. A lower quality pastel is brown muddy looking. Low quality babies are orange and/or brown. Oranges turn brown as adults. High quality pastel babies are neon yellow almost.
I hope she doesn't mind, but MissRiss2012 has one of the best quality pastels around.

This is her pastel looking amazing at 800g. Better than many hatchlings.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/07/u8ere3a4.jpg

Here's one via Google that is about the same size as well.
http://www.junkmail.co.za/images/lar...124751467.jpeg

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Thanks! Of course I don't mind if you share my photo :)

Like she said, I definitely think that contrast Is a big factor. I ONLY purchase animals that make me say "wow" and stops me in my tracks.

I will have to find the link, but there is a section in the forums here on BP.net that describes many morphs and even circles those traits in photos to help illustrate what makes a pastel a pastel, for example.

I'm on my phone, but you should be able to find those threads! I believe they are in the BP Morphs and genetics section.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

It does help out but i wanted to know at what point does an animal go from being a really light/dark normal to being an actual morph. How can you visually identify the morph. Not tryin to give anybody a hard time but there is not a whole lot of info i could find on traits a morph MUST have to be considered a specific morph and what traits it CANT have. Best way to compare what im saying is dog breed standards.

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This is something I've been trying to research also, without much in the way of clear-cut results. And really it's surprising that this topic doesn't get more attention, as crazy as the morph list is getting lately.

Take the fire morph, for instance. I've found this much out: they are all brighter in color than normals, they all have black or mostly black eyes, they all have clean bellies with varying amounts of "tracking" along the sides, they have varying amounts of "flames" coming up into all side bands that touch the belly, but some more than others. Then it gets tricky. There's the "fire" head stamp; most have it, some don't. Most have a reduced pattern, some don't. Most of them have a lot of blushing, some don't. And most have a sharp contrast between the dark and light colors, but some don't. I've looked at pictures, read descriptions, and asked around on forums but I have yet to find anything I can use as a reliable standard. If you have an animal that is not proven and has no solid background info, but has a good case for being the morph based on its physical appearance, as I currently do, you will fight a long uphill battle when looking for any kind of field guide to stand it up against. I guarantee you if I posted my girl in the "is this a morph" section, I would get a mixture of "low quality fire" and "really light normal."

And there are much more subtle morphs than fire. I've seen animals that are described, even proven, as a do-dominant morph where I've seen more aberrant animals passed off as "nice normals." I'm actually glad to see someone else pose this question, as I was beginning to think I was the only one who felt this confusion. Sure, if it proves out through breeding or has documented parents to back it up, it's a morph. But as for visually picking out a subtle morph when you don't have any documentation on the animal, it is very, very difficult.

So yeah, I'm right with you on this one.

There used to be some posts here called the 'hunters guide' to the morphs. It was basically about picking out morphs from lots of import babies. It had some pretty good discriptions in it though for the various named morphs. I thought it was stickied here somewhere? I can't seem to find it now.

I think I remember it. It didn't get updated past a certain point, but it had some good pointers on some of the (for lack of a better word) "older" morphs.

There's a subsection of the forum that describes the different morphs in detail. I'm not sure if it's fully up to date with new morphs that are starting to come out, but it's somewhere to start...

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum...-Python-Morphs