Is this a regular BP???????

Looks a little special to me . . .




http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._2501215_n.jpg

yes normal

Looks normal. But if you have any reasoning behind thinking it's different. Try to prove it by breeding.

Most BP's I've seen are strict bown and black. Mine Has a lot of gold and yellow. Normal How?

Normal bps can vary a great amount! Some normals can be almost as dark as sables, while others can be almost as bright as a fire! They are beautiful and just being 'normal' doesn't change that ;) My normal has a lot of blushing and beautiful gold colors and a lot of white on the body! But I know my snake probably won't prove out to be anything :) It's okay! Yours is an AWESOME looking normal! I love the pattern!

EDIT: Check out this thread http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-beauties!-DUW
You can see all the different normal ball pythons! :) And post your own if you'd like!

Purplemuffin is right, "normals" can vary greatly. One of mine is a deep gold/brown and black with yellow down its sides, the other is a very light brow and jet black with a lot of white coming up from its stomach. Normals are just incredible :)

I understand they can vary, but isn't that variation a result of the different interminglings of various ball pythons? So if I'm white and I have a child who looks black, does that mean he's black? Or is he white? Or is he a mixture of the two? Because you'd have to consider either way, should'n that represent an intermingling of the genes? How is a BP any different?

Normal is a little different than that.. Morphs are more like mutations than race.

All morphs are specific bred genes that come from normal ball python mutations in the wild. A single gene 'glitch' causes Fire ball pythons, that gene happens to be possible to breed for and it passes it down to it's children. It can be bred for easily because it is just this one gene that causes the visual difference. You could also line breed light ball pythons for generations to create constant bright light balls, but it would be different than a fire. If a normal light ball python breeds to a normal dark ball python, you'll get a mixture of different shaded normals, usually a middle color. If a fire ball python(with a specific mutation for fire) breeds to a dark normal, you will get more fires as well as some normals.

Your example is more like breeding a light bp to a dark bp.. Neither is a morph and neither makes a morph, but they have a child that is a mixture of their genes.. There is no mutation involved, it is just thousands of different parts of DNA working together. If one of you was albino and you had albino children, that would be more comparable to bp morph making!

It's sort of late so I hope my explanation makes sense. Basically those comparisons don't work that well together?

I do like the head spots. Kind of reminds me of the "Scream" mask.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by purplemuffin

Normal is a little different than that.. Morphs are more like mutations than race.

All morphs are specific bred genes that come from normal ball python mutations in the wild. A single gene 'glitch' causes Fire ball pythons, that gene happens to be possible to breed for and it passes it down to it's children. It can be bred for easily because it is just this one gene that causes the visual difference. You could also line breed light ball pythons for generations to create constant bright light balls, but it would be different than a fire. If a normal light ball python breeds to a normal dark ball python, you'll get a mixture of different shaded normals, usually a middle color. If a fire ball python(with a specific mutation for fire) breeds to a dark normal, you will get more fires as well as some normals.

Your example is more like breeding a light bp to a dark bp.. Neither is a morph and neither makes a morph, but they have a child that is a mixture of their genes.. There is no mutation involved, it is just thousands of different parts of DNA working together. If one of you was albino and you had albino children, that would be more comparable to bp morph making!

It's sort of late so I hope my explanation makes sense. Basically those comparisons don't work that well together?

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Agreed. Either the ball has the gene or it doesn't. You can't have a normal bp that is half lesser without showing the full trait. You can get some pretty normals from different combos, but they will still be normals. Even if you get a really light normal from a pastel, no matter how much you breed it, you will not get a pastel.

Beautiful snake! I love the spots on her head :)

I'm not a fan of the "normal" label TBH. I prefer "classic."

Normal sounds like boring... which they most certainly are not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpiffyYoshi

I'm not a fan of the "normal" label TBH. I prefer "classic."

Normal sounds like boring... which they most certainly are not.

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I agree, Wild type is my preferred term for them and they certainly are not "normal" :P

As stated before, in 95% of cases, a normal is just that a normal. I don't care if it came from a solid white snake, it's still just a normal.

The only exceptions are heterozygous animals, they appear normal and carry a hidden gene. The key words here being "appear normal". There is no way to visually distinguish a het animal from a non het.

I've seen normals range from nearly black body with chocolate markings to carmel bodies with sand colored markings, they are still just normals.

Here are some of mine as an example :

This beautiful pale creature is a normal female.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...kes/Kaiya1.jpg

So is this one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...s/IMG_0122.jpg

And this one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...kes/Akira2.jpg


See the differences ? No two look alike, but all are normals. And they all had at least one normal parent.

Gale