Lucy question

The first time I saw a BEL which was quite a few years ago I fell in love and have wanted one ever since. Now that I have tge opportunity to breed I would like to make one. I've done some research and found that the cleanest and whitest BEL is the super lesser however im concerned about the bug eye flaw. My question is how prevalent is this flaw in super lessers and do they grow into their bug eyes as adults?

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I too would like to know about this as my future breeding plans involve my norm and two lessers... I really want to make BELs and honestly would be quite content after hitting that goal. Not saying I wouldn't pursue further plans just that that's kind of IT for me teehee. Didn't know about this flaw though :/. Wish I could contribute.

From what ive read its not exactly uncommon but not many people have seen adult BELs with bug eyes which to me means either adults grow into the eyes or its not as prevalent as it seems. Unless that is bug eyes are some how fatal

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Your safest bet for a clean Bel is Mojave x lesser. No grey head like the super Mojave, no bug eyes like the super lesser.

As for prevelence of bug eyes, it seems fairly common, but I don't have any clutch data. I think Jerry had a few bug eyed supers, or maybe he knew someone who did...(his username is snakesrkewl if you wanted to pm him directly)

Here's the lesser Mojave http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/lesser-mojave/

"From what I have been told and seen in my collection, the lesser x lesser and or butter x butter have the eye problem about 50% of the time. "

Found this in a similar thread posted a while back
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-for-400/page3


post #26... this user seems to breed them, or at least have a pretty big collection. Idk how "factual" this is but I tend to subscribe to ppl who offer info based on experience so it may be pretty good info. Like you, I can't find anything that says it decreases the quality of life for the snake. I'll keep looking.

I've seen many bels with bug eyes. never produced a lesser to lesser or butter. not sure if they out grow this, but I've seen decent size ones that still had the bug eye effect.

just get a Mojave and go Mojave X lesser to avoid the problem all together.

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Originally Posted by Jay Mechtly

just get a Mojave and go Mojave X lesser to avoid the problem all together.

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for some it's not the look of the snake as much as what they plan to do with it. breeding wise

I got some lesser x lesser eggs cooking right now, let ya know how it turns out, still a month n a half to go.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

I got some lesser x lesser eggs cooking right now, let ya know how it turns out, still a month n a half to go.

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Same. We have a Butter Spinner / Pastel Champ x Lesser clutch cooking, slated to hatch in September. If we hit Lucy's I can provide some results.

I hatched a super lesser BEL this year - her eyes are fine. :)

Jeremy at Fireball Reptiles have hatched bug eyes Super Lessers.

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Originally Posted by RoseyReps

As for prevelence of bug eyes, it seems fairly common, but I don't have any clutch data. I think Jerry had a few bug eyed supers, or maybe he knew someone who did...(his username is snakesrkewl if you wanted to pm him directly)]

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Jerry has normal looking eyed Supers, but two out of three of them are blind.

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Hi :)


If you want to breed very clean and very white Blue Eye Lucys, i strongly advise against super lessers / super butters / lesser butters.

Why? Well, you have many different ways to make them, and only one of these many options has known genetic health issues.

Since super lesser, super butter, and the mixed version lesser+butter show the same eye issue i assume both genes to be identical, two equivalent lines of the same morph with different names. If they would really be different, it would be a big coincidence that the lesser butter has the same eye issue. (for comparison: super cinnamon and super black pastel both can have duckbill or spine kinks, but the cinnamon black pastel does not show these genetic issues and also looks different).

You can make very clean blue-eye lucys with the following combinations:

- lesser/butter + mojave
- lesser/butter + mystic
- lesser/butter + phantom
- lesser/butter + het russo
- lesser/butter + mocha
- Russo leucistic, the super-form of "het russo".
- possibly more combinations using one copy of russo and one of the other genes

Many of these are not on WOBP with a picture, because they look identical. If the combo is listed on WOBP, but there is no picture, you can assume WOBP rejected the pictures because they look too identical to any other clean BEL.

All of these are very white, and none of these show the genetic eye problem. It doesnt seem to be a big deal for a ball python to be blind, blind BPs live good lifes and only sometimes fail to strike their food item on first try. But still, why risk it if it can so easily be avoided?

Also, there are the BELs that are not completely white. You get them by combining two of these genes without using lesser or butter, or by making a super-form of any of these other genes. (Well, except for Russo, here the super is perfectly white).

For example: Mystic potion:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/mystic-potion/

Enchi mystic potion:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/mo...e-corcra-ball/

Super phantom:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/super-phantom/

Latte = super mocha:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/latte/ damn, they deleted the pictures.... Its almost white but with residual pattern and areas that almost look transparent or lavender-like.

Leche= phantom mocha:
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/leche/

So, if you just want a very white nice-looking and healthy BEL, the cheapest and easiest way would be to go for lesser/butter + mojave.

You can even mass-produce these very white BELs, and still avoid the eye issue, for example: Breed lesser to mojave to get lesser mojave BEL, breed mojave to mojave to get super mojave BEL. Now you can breed lesser mojave to super mojave and get clutches that will be 50% super-clean BELs in the form of lesser mojaves, and 50% of the grey-headed super mojaves. More of both, no normals or single-gene animals in the clutch. Rinse, repeat. Now you can breed lesser mojave to super mystic, 50% will be very clean white lesser mystics, and the other half will be those awesome mystic potions.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

I got some lesser x lesser eggs cooking right now, let ya know how it turns out, still a month n a half to go.

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Would love to see those when the hatch!

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Jerry has normal looking eyed Supers, but two out of three of them are blind.

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Yep, eyes appear weird looking but shaped correctly.
The snakes have no response to movement and constantly rub on their tubs.
I won't do super lesser/butters again, mojo X lesser maybe, but no super lesser/butters for me.

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

Yep, eyes appear weird looking but shaped correctly.
The snakes have no response to movement and constantly rub on their tubs.
I won't do super lesser/butters again, mojo X lesser maybe, but no super lesser/butters for me.

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I also won't do super lesser/butter combo either. I've done super Mojave and lesser to Mojave without any issues. next I'll be doing phantom to lesser to produce a karma

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

You can make very clean blue-eye lucys with the following combinations:

- lesser/butter + mojave there are cases of some yellowing out
- lesser/butter + mystic Dorsal stripe can be seen on some and some yellow out
- lesser/butter + phantom Dorsal stripe can be seen on some and some yellow out
- lesser/butter + het russo
- lesser/butter + mocha Dorsal stripe can be seen on some
- Russo leucistic, the super-form of "het russo".Dorsal stripe can be seen on some, in my experience seen on most

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im not saying lesser/butter x lesser/butter are always pure white either, just some combos listed have a tendency not to be pure white, white diamond being the worst offender from what I have seen.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

im not saying lesser/butter x lesser/butter are always pure white either, just some combos listed have a tendency not to be pure white, white diamond being the worst offender from what I have seen.

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Yes you may be right there. I dont doubt it. Still, if even super lessers / super butters / lesser butters can have residual dorsal stripe, isnt it worth it to go for an alternative just to avoid producing blind BPs?

For pure white go for all-white pied. I think BEL white doesnt quite beat pied white. Lesser piebalds often are all-white snakes. I think apart from the commonly discussed pigments, ball pythons also have a white pigment, which fluoresces under UV light, and i think piebalds have a lot of it.

EDIT: and i think the BEL complex is good at stripping pigments and leaving the white pigment, but maybe doesnt add to the white pigment?

So my major question is, are the bug eyes just a phenotype thing, or can they pass on their bug eyes to offspring?

If you have a bug eyed super lesser and breed it to a perfectly healthy normal, will its offspring have bug eyes?

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Originally Posted by sharkrocket

So my major question is, are the bug eyes just a phenotype thing, or can they pass on their bug eyes to offspring?

If you have a bug eyed super lesser and breed it to a perfectly healthy normal, will its offspring have bug eyes?

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Only the super lesser, super butter, or the combined super (lesser + butter) are afflicted wth this curse.

You can breed a super lesser to a normal and will get 100% healthy single-gene lessers. The problem does not occur unless one snake has two copies of the gene. And parents affected by it will produce perfectly healthy offspring, given that the offspring only gets one copy of the gene, not two.

So if you do the right pairings, you can breed blind super lessers / super butters, and produce perfectly healthy non-blind offspring. You can still use these for breeding, and you can work around it and avoid producing any more snakes that go blind. So i would say no, its not hereditary.

EDIT: By the way, its not the only case.... duckbill or spine kinks in super cinnamon/super black pastel are similar. Thats why some breeders keep and continue breeding some defective animals hidden deep inside their collections, because with the right pairings all offspring will be just fine.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

Yes you may be right there. I dont doubt it. Still, if even super lessers / super butters / lesser butters can have residual dorsal stripe, isnt it worth it to go for an alternative just to avoid producing blind BPs?

For pure white go for all-white pied. I think BEL white doesnt quite beat pied white. Lesser piebalds often are all-white snakes. I think apart from the commonly discussed pigments, ball pythons also have a white pigment, which fluoresces under UV light, and i think piebalds have a lot of it.

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I would compare it to the ethics of breeding spiders, Blind snakes would be the equivalent of the train wreak spiders, not every snake is like that and it appears to be rare. Some just have bug eyes or a moderate wobble. Some are fine and have no eye problems or wobble. Saying use an alternative is pretty short sited as your just looking at the potential offspring from one generation. I want nothing to do with mojaves currently, as I see them as sub par to lesser/butter. I know many would disagree with me, but thats how I feel. I don't want anything to do with het russos either. The rest of the BEL complex will most likely not produce the snake I strive for. So I take the risk associated with the lesser x lesser and hope to produce one of the healthy BEL. Just as anyone breeding spiders hopes to produce a non-train wreak spiders. If I happen to produce a less than perfect animal, that is on me as a breeder.

problem seems to be we have a good gauge on how often degree of wobble will appear, its safe to say most spiders will not have a bad wobble, we dont seem to know how often bug eyes appear and Jerry is the only blind BELs I've heard of. Also it may not be so random appearing like the spider. One pair of lessers might produce blind and bug eye snakes often while another pair of lessers might always produce perfect BEL. Not saying thats how it is, just it is possible.

Pieds dont get you blue eyes though, though I agree their white is about as pure as it gets.

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EDIT: and i think the BEL complex is good at stripping pigments and leaving the white pigment, but maybe doesnt add to the white pigment?

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I would agree

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Originally Posted by sharkrocket

So my major question is, are the bug eyes just a phenotype thing, or can they pass on their bug eyes to offspring?

If you have a bug eyed super lesser and breed it to a perfectly healthy normal, will its offspring have bug eyes?

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Bug eyes, if it appears, is only in the BEL, not the lesser offspring.

AHH! thread revival!

But look what popped out yesterday:
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2426167d.jpg
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...pseebc6bcb.jpg
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7c492b20.jpg

Doesn't look like bug eyes to me and I know it's not blind because it dives back in the egg when it sees me. Those pics were burst shots lol. It's the only BEL in this clutch, I could see pattern through the egg with the other eggs, looks like I got a lesser sticking his head out so far, see what the other 3 are soon :). But yea, no bug eyes from what I can see, no blindness super lesser.