De novo mutations in captivity

I enjoy reading the stories behind various morphs. Most of them start with "it was imported in 200x," but not all ... I was just reading the story of Corey Woods' "Mutation X" and it sounds as though (if I'm reading it right) this is one morph that truly arose spontaneously in captivity -- not present in the parent snakes' genotypes.

http://www.reptileradio.net/reptiler...750#post718750

From what I can recall, the puzzle ball morph arose in captivity as well ... Are those the only two, or am I missing any? (Or am I the only one who gets a kick out of this, ha ha ...)

When I purchased my pastel special from Tom Baker, he said he adopted several adult ball pythons for $100. He said one of them looked different, so he posted pictures to the forums, and everyone said it was normal. He purchased a mojave male for $7000, and wanted to produce more.. When he paired the mojo male to the odd female, he hatched a crystal :D. Very cool story to hear :P.

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Originally Posted by h00blah

When I purchased my pastel special from Tom Baker, he said he adopted several adult ball pythons for $100. He said one of them looked different, so he posted pictures to the forums, and everyone said it was normal. He purchased a mojave male for $7000, and wanted to produce more.. When he paired the mojo male to the odd female, he hatched a crystal :D. Very cool story to hear :P.

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I love that story ... Partly because it's a fun one in its own right, and partly because it gives me hope that my two CB "dinker" girls might prove out to be what I hope they might be (and yep, one of them is a "possible special" ...) :please:

I wonder, though, if those were de novo mutations, or if they were just so subtle that they slipped through the cracks at the importers ... :confusd:

Is puzzle recessive? The thing with recessives is, they probably didn't spontaneously "arise" in captivity---the gene was probably just floating around invisibly in the hets, and finally somebody got lucky enough to pair two carriers together.

But there are SO MANY genes in ball pythons. So many, you gotta wonder how often new mutations happens...

That's going to get confusing. Corey's mutation X and Justin's Gene X.

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Originally Posted by loonunit

Is puzzle recessive? The thing with recessives is, they probably didn't spontaneously "arise" in captivity---the gene was probably just floating around invisibly in the hets, and finally somebody got lucky enough to pair two carriers together.

But there are SO MANY genes in ball pythons. So many, you gotta wonder how often new mutations happens...

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Whoop, you're right. It is recessive. I had thought it was co-dom, sorry. :oops:

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Originally Posted by rabernet

That's going to get confusing. Corey's mutation X and Justin's Gene X.

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YES. THANK YOU.

(I have a Gene X het pied male. This is already causing me to despair.)

Personally I don't think there has ever been a De novo ball python mutation in captivity. Drinkers are imported all the time. There are ball pythons that have been in captivity for many years that have probably never been bred. Not to mention, who takes the time to breed back every normal looking ball python? How many more recessive traits are out there that no one has found? Look at the Bourgogne Albino. Just because no one has seen it before, doesn't necessarily qualify it as De nova.

Supposedly the jaguar carpet python arose spontaneously in captivity.

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

Supposedly the jaguar carpet python arose spontaneously in captivity.

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in 1997.
To my knowledge though no codominant/dominant ball python morphs have ever originated in captivity. Sure at some point they all started some how.