Erythriphores in ball pythons discussion

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Thanks for clarifying. I got carried away with my post, so sorry for that.

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No worries.

So back to the topic at hand, In another thread I had mentioned that I thought axanthics should be called hypo-xanthics. My reasoning was that since they brown out over time, there must be some xanthiphore involved. Tim said he thought the browning was due to erythrispore rather than xanthiphore. I think that is a real possibility, and would explain a lot of what we see in all the different ball pythons. That is what got me thinking about this.

As a graphic designer who has spent a lot of time taking two color jobs for print and turning them into the most colorful pieces possible, I learned a lot about the outcomes of mixing different values of certain colors together. Especially mixing black with a primary or secondary color. I learned that mixing all the possible combinations of black and yellow pigments gives us shades of yellow, gray and dull greens that always reminded me of pea soup.

I know Chris Simone was working with a possible recessive project he named "Olive green". Now my thinking is that if a project like that proved out, it would be a true anery ball python. That's assuming there is red pigment at play in ball pythons. Any thoughts?

I have never been under the impression that balls lack red pigment.

Just a question, and I have no idea what i'm talking about. Could the pinks we see in the light balls be their blood? Maybe their scales are semi-transparent and that's where the pink comes from? Isn't that why Albino's appear pink, because their skin is transparent (no pigment)? It could be the same way with the lighter balls.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I have never been under the impression that balls lack red pigment.

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I was always under that impression, but I don't remember why. Am I just wrong here? Is it common acceptance that ball pythons have erythriphor? If so why don't we ever see people selectively breeding for high red balls like we see for high yellow, or high contrast red snows? I would also think that an olive green project would be named an anery project if this was common knowledge. If this is the case, sorry for starting this thread, but at least I might learn some things. Please post your opinions or knowledge for me.

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Originally Posted by stratus_020202

Just a question, and I have no idea what i'm talking about. Could the pinks we see in the light balls be their blood? Maybe their scales are semi-transparent and that's where the pink comes from? Isn't that why Albino's appear pink, because their skin is transparent (no pigment)? It could be the same way with the lighter balls.

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I thought about that. A bunch of lucies, pieds, spieds, lesser pieds, etc are solid white after just a few sheds, so any pink you see on a ball is not likely due to transparent scales.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I was always under that impression, but I don't remember why. Am I just wrong here? Is it common acceptance that ball pythons have erythriphor? If so why don't we ever see people selectively breeding for high red balls like we see for high yellow, or high contrast red snows? I would also think that an olive green project would be named an anery project if this was common knowledge. If this is the case, sorry for starting this thread, but at least I might learn some things. Please post your opinions or knowledge for me.

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I think one of the big reasons is because there isn't as nearly as high of a percentage of ball breeders working on selective breeding as there are with other species. Let's face it, the majority of people out there breeding balls are just throwing whatever they can get together without any thought towards improving the looks. On top of that, the people that ARE doing some selective breeding, are more than likely working on multiple morph combo's, which always has a chance of muddying up whatever selective breeding you've done with the single morph.
As far as the reds go, I know there's a few people working with the burgundies, but don't really hear much about them. I think I remember reading somewhere that Kevin at NERD has been trying to selectively breed more red coloration into the ball pythons -- I believe that had something to do with the infernos.

I think if you mean getting to the same degree as an anery corn, corns are naturally a reddish color, which means they have a lot to work with.

The most red's we see are in caramels and the toffee ball. I think that is just about the limit for balls. Burgundy's are gorgeous in my opinion, but a lot of people dont see that much of a difference to pursue breeding for it.

You can only strip away so many colors and dilute so much before you're back to a white animal.

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

I think one of the big reasons is because there isn't as nearly as high of a percentage of ball breeders working on selective breeding as there are with other species. Let's face it, the majority of people out there breeding balls are just throwing whatever they can get together without any thought towards improving the looks. On top of that, the people that ARE doing some selective breeding, are more than likely working on multiple morph combo's, which always has a chance of muddying up whatever selective breeding you've done with the single morph.
As far as the reds go, I know there's a few people working with the burgundies, but don't really hear much about them. I think I remember reading somewhere that Kevin at NERD has been trying to selectively breed more red coloration into the ball pythons -- I believe that had something to do with the infernos.

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I agree and understand that balls are sort of a different game altogether than most species when it comes to selective breeding. But there were decades where there wasn't much to work with (before the explosion of morphs) where I would think that selectively breeding would have resulted in some high reds, at least to the point where I would have heard that term when talking about ball pythons.

As far as Kevin working on high reds, is that through selective breeding, or is it through trying for 5 way combos using morphs that show a lot of oranges and pinks?

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I think if you mean getting to the same degree as an anery corn, corns are naturally a reddish color, which means they have a lot to work with.

The most red's we see are in caramels and the toffee ball. I think that is just about the limit for balls. Burgundy's are gorgeous in my opinion, but a lot of people dont see that much of a difference to pursue breeding for it.

You can only strip away so many colors and dilute so much before you're back to a white animal.

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But if you pushed for red by selective breeding, you should be able to get a high contrast red and white snow, or super high contrast albino within a decade or so, and I haven't seen it attempted other than so called high contrast albinos, which don't look any darker than they did 8 years ago. Just look at what we've done with selectively breeding normal leopard geckos. We have taken a dull yellow animal and got to the point where the dull yellow is extreme orange. Is it accepted as being able to be done with balls, and just not getting worked on, or do we just not know?

Edit: You also said that caramels seem to push the limit of red compared to most other morphs. If that was true, and it was due to erythriphore, why does everyone say that a homozygous albino homozygous caramel would probably just have the phenotype of a normal albino. Wouldn't it be assumed that it would be a bright orange and white snake with much higher contrast that a normal albino?