Some morphs more aggressive?

Is it true some morphs of ball pythons are more aggressive than others?? My good friend has about 50 ball pythons and his 7 mojave males and females plus his pastave are very nippy and strike no matter how much he handles them. Also his cinnamons are all nasty as well and very prone to strike defensively. While his spiders, pastels, and albinos are very calm and do not mind being picked up. He claims some morphs are always more nippy.. Is this true?


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Only bite I've taken from a snake, thus far, has been my male albino ball python. I think it's like with kids: some bite more than others!

It has been said and noticed that the darker morphs tend to have a little bit more attitude.

I know my mojave girl and a few other mojos were feisty when they were younger.

Our mojo boy definitely is hissy (though he's never tried to strike or done anything more threatening than stare at my hand when I go in to pick him up), but I've been attributing that to him having been a breeder and probably not a pet. He's been getting better at not hissing, though.

I've heard the the deserts are more agressive and have seen youtube videos to prove it. I wonder if it's more about the lines the snake comes from than the morph itself. Like with horses you want the sire and dam to have good personalities because the foal inherits it and also picks up a lot from mom since they're raised with her (obviously not the same for balls). Interesting discussion though.

my mojave girl was really aggressive when she was little .. my vanilla female at 800g still is! .. I have also noticed that Phantoms tend to not eat as well as others .. they take longer time to gain weight

I would disagree with this. My two black pastels and my mojo are all great and have not even hissed at me. My bee tries to bite me whenever i slide his tub out. Took a few bites from my albino too. I think it all just depends on the snake

I guess it is all based on the individual snake but i too heard that darker morphs have a little more attitude than lighter morphs.. Weird. I would like to see a study if morphs play a role in aggression or ability to tolorate handling.


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I would lean more towards the theory that it's the line of snake rather than the color. I think snakes are too simple genetically to have behavior and color links the way some breeds of animals "tend" to have. However, I think a possible way to investigate this is to trace the first few captive hatched originators of a particular morph and see if the first few generations of mojaves from different bloodlines, regardless of owner are aggressive or not. I've heard clowns and pins used to be aggressive, but I've also heard of many other individuals of other color morphs that sounded even more cranky than the average pinny. :D

To be fair, there are huge advantages to aggression for most snakes, seeing how good of eaters and breeders the more hissy and biting they tend to be. If I were a hungry animal looking for a snake snack, I'd probably eat the quieter ones!

Funny how we all have different experiences. With my bunch it's the pastels/super pastels that have attitude and hiss when disturbed. None of my current bunch of royals strike to bite but I used to have a super pastel who drew blood numerous times. My female pewter has some attitude but i put that down to the pastel side rather than the cinny!

Brian did an episode of snakebytes on this. I will try and find it so you can see

http://youtu.be/HDVyhtOIBOM

As much as i really disagree with it it is just another look at it from someone on a much bigger scale than us with thousands more snakes. Im still sticking on it depending on the snake since i have a few dark snakes that i let my 5 year old neice handle with no worries of her getting bit and lighter ones i wouldnt let her hold

I have a man-eating Onyx ball- Black Pastel/Het Red Axanthic. Its not just a crazy insane feeding responce with him, it's hissing, and whipping around snapping/chewing like Jaws on the back of the boat. He flails around like crazy when you pick him up. Takes quite a while before he just relaxes into a calm, but strike ready posture.
I have heard of other Red Axanthic types with a feed responce like no other. I really doubt it came from the Black pastel half, my Black Pastel girl is an absolute ham. I agree on the line, not color aggressiveness.

my little Calico female is full of p & v, always hissing when I go near her, no bite yet.
the only bite I ever got, so far anyway, was from my big normal female, no longer have her.
my big pastel female is also very hissy when I clean her bin.
I too think it's the snake, not the morph, but I haven't had hundreds to compare them all.

Its the snake, not the morph imo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Its the snake, not the morph imo.

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Exactly,
No morph is any more aggressive than any other.
I've seen cinny's and black pastels that want to eat your head and others that never bite or hiss or anything but be sweet.
Everyone has different experiences because they are all different in personality and manners.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Evildrdee

I have a man-eating Onyx ball- Black Pastel/Het Red Axanthic. Its not just a crazy insane feeding responce with him, it's hissing, and whipping around snapping/chewing like Jaws on the back of the boat. He flails around like crazy when you pick him up. Takes quite a while before he just relaxes into a calm, but strike ready posture.
I have heard of other Red Axanthic types with a feed responce like no other. I really doubt it came from the Black pastel half, my Black Pastel girl is an absolute ham. I agree on the line, not color aggressiveness.

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I know this thread is a year and a half old, but I find it interesting. I have to agree with Evildrdee. Most of the babies from my my Red Axanthic (male) X Cinny clutch have one hell of an attitude. All the Gargoyles and half the HRA's will strike even when out of their cages. I remember Corey Woods (who first discovered the Red Ax. morph mentioning the attitude quite awhile ago.
BTW, My Cinny girl had an attitude as bad as any ball (or boa) I've had, and stayed that way until she was about 1000 grams or so. The Red AZ himself also had an attitude at times, but outgrew it quicker than the Cinny.

Interesting topic, I was wondering something similar not long ago. I have an Enchi who strikes at me when I pull her tub out, great feeder though. I hope she grows out of it she's so pretty I'd love to get her out more often.

This has been raised a few times. Cinnamon seems to come up a lot as well as pied.

My desert can be a little "happy" at times. But once he's out, he's usually ok. But my PewterBlast is totally chill. Through my experiences, sometimes I think it's just the snake.

cinnys!!!


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My Calico bites me every time i pull him out.. try and prob a snake that just keeps on going. Even had him try and swallow my thumb. Glad hes only 150g rite now.lol hope he will get better

I've definitely seen aggressive genes (not associated with morph) passed down through up to 3 generations. I had two different unusually aggressive ball pythons that produced some unusually aggressive offspring and in one case I've even seen aggression in some grandchildren before purging the line from my collection. Early on ball pythons had a reputation as bad feeders and difficult breeders. At that time, most were imported adults (this was like 25 years ago). I think some breeders selected for ball pythons that were more like the more aggressive species they had already had success breeding so aggressive genes might have been added early on to some morph lines.

I've been trying to work the aggressive animals out of my collection but it's hard when you have other genetics you want to keep. Right now I have a beautiful female hypo pph clown that I'd like to raise up to breed and see if she can produce a hypo clown but I really hate her personality. Lately she seems to be getting a bit better but given that she was still striking up to a year old I think she has an aggressive gene from her mom and tracing back to my original het hypo male. They aren't nearly as bad or consistently nasty as the first two lines I mentioned though but not up to the "nice" snakes I think the species should be.

Although I think I've seen good evidence of aggressive genes that don't change appearance I don't discount the possibility a mutation could have personality effects as well as the color/pattern we initially select them for. I've heard breeders describe spiders as having extra personality and I remember tiger retics were reported to be particularly mellow.

I breed some dark morph combos and have not noticed a bias toward aggression in the ones I work with (chocolate, mojave, cinnamon).

However, one time years ago I gave a corn snake egg to a co-worker so his son could watch it hatch. Apparently their house was a little cooler than we expected because it took a very long time to hatch (don't remember exactly but might have been close to 90 days). I think it was a genetic anerythristic (like axanthic in balls), at least it could have been based on the parents. But it came out very dark and smokey colored all over and the most aggressive corn I had ever seen. In this case I wonder if the cool incubation caused darker color and more aggression. I don't think ball python eggs can stand nearly the range of incubation temperatures corn snakes can so maybe long before you saw any changes in color or temperament from low incubation temps you would just not get hatchlings. But then again you used to see small dark imported ball hatchlings that I don't think ever proved genetic so maybe these were from low incubation temps?

The one and only nippy snake i been around was and atb and from what I've seen heard they always have attitude lol. None of my balls are nippy or hiss

I had a atb that was such a cool snake but was the devil incarnate. Haha Once you opened his cage you had 5-10 seconds before he went from his perch at the top of his cage to the door and was striking at any movement. You could move your hand around outside the cage and he'd track your movement like if you were holding a cheeseburger in front of a dog.
Only strike I've had from a ball was the other day when I was cleaning up some substrate in front of my calicos hide. It was daytime so I didn't even think about it (I only feed at dusk/night and clean or handle my snakes during the day) but she had just shed and was hungry. She missed but it was close.