Wobble Gene

How do you guys/gals feel about Bumblebees and Spiders? I purchased a baby Bumblebee male last weekend, but I was completely unaware that all Bumblebees and Spiders carry the "wobble" gene...I wouldn't have purchased it if I had better educated myself. Thanx for any input...

It's something that can get personal for some people. Some think it's "cute". Some are turned off by it. Personally, if it doesn't impact their ability to eat, drink, eliminate, or otherwise function normally (and it usually doesn't), I don't have any issues with it.

For your further education, here is a good place to learn more about other issues that are morph-related: http://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php. Enjoy!

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Originally Posted by Enki40

I wouldn't have purchased it if I had better educated myself. Thanx for any input,,,,

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Why? There is nothing wrong as long as the snake is feeding without any issues.

Just a personal preference. I like animals that are true to form...movements, temperament, structure, etc. I watched how he moves in comparison to my normal bp....I can see a difference....jmo.

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

It's something that can get personal for some people. Some think it's "cute". Some are turned off by it. Personally, if it doesn't impact their ability to eat, drink, eliminate, or otherwise function normally (and it usually doesn't), I don't have any issues with it.

For your further education, here is a good place to learn more about other issues that are morph-related: http://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php. Enjoy!

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Agreed :gj:! It's definitely down to opinion. When I first bought my spider, I knew they had wobbles, but I didn't know I'd be so freaked out by it when I saw it in person. My spider boy is one of my better feeders, and he's a great snake to handle for first timers who want to see a snake. If I were to end up selling my collection, he would definitely be a holdback.

Spiders/combos are my favorite morph and I don't care as long as my Spider combo looks better than your snake :P

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Originally Posted by Ransack

Spiders/combos are my favorite morph and I don't care as long as my Spider combo looks better than your snake :P

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Hey! I resemble that remark!
:sabduel::matrixfig:bonk:

I have two spider females, a cinnabee female, a killer bee male, a spider mojave female and a bumble bee female. Only the cinnabee has any wobble. Regardless. I love what the spider gene does on its own and in combos and I will continue to work with this morph.

It's worth it to note that the very first snake retrieved from the wild as an adult had a wobble, but that didn't meaningfully impact his ability to hunt and feed for himself or otherwise function as a normal snake until humans intervened. When I first heard about the wobble and found some videos on line, I thought I would be turned off by it, but turns out I just love the morph and its combos way too much.

That said, when I get into breeding, I am going to be VERY selective about which snakes I purchase, hold back, and pair up. To my knowledge everyone has just accepted it as 'a thing' and no one has attemted to see if careful line breeding could reduce or eliminate the effect. I want f it's possible to produce snakes with little to no wobble. Who knows, maybe I'll be the first to produce a low to wobbless line ;)

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Originally Posted by pmarks

I have two spider females, a cinnabee female, a killer bee male, a spider mojave female and a bumble bee female. Only the cinnabee has any wobble. Regardless. I love what the spider gene does on its own and in combos and I will continue to work with this morph.

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I am going to quote this post, because I have six snakes with the spider gene in my collection and only have one snake that shows a hint of wobble, (Spinner male) he is a voracious eater and is fun and inquisitive and is my sons favorite snake.

The point I am trying to make with this is it does exist but is very overblown in my opinion with some people even having an agenda.

All spiders and combos wobble to a degree, it's not something that can be bred out and now a days (vs 10 years ago) it's no longer a secret.

Most combos you will see out there halve a very mild wobble so much so people that are untrained do not see it, very rarely have I seen real train wrecks.

I can understand not wanting to work with spiders I feel the same way toward caramels as well as Super Cinny and Super Black Pastel (I do however work with Black Pastel combos just not the supers)

If it really troubles you, maybe you need to consider trading the animal or selling it, this time make sure do some research because Spiders are not the only one with the issue.

Its is also stress induced.
I know a couple people that swear their spider never has and will never show signs of a wobble....... LoL
A little stress and guess what? One shows it when feeding, while getting ready to strike there is a minor visible wobble but not what the owner noticed.
Most people think of a wobble as the wild corckscrewing you see on all the you tube videos. It can be as slight as an improper head tilt.

I had a spider that showed very little wobble when handled and a noticeable wobble whenever he smelled food. But he was a very good eater. Like people have already said if he otherwise acts like a normal BP then he is fine. Personal preference I guess.

i had always believed that spider wobble lessened when combined with other genes - somehow watered it down

but

i had 2 spiders in the past where i did not observe wobble

i now have a mojave bee which exhibits a rather odd feeding behaviour.

When she smells rat she will strike out - but not necessarily at the rat. It is like she cannot combine the senses of heat detection and smell detection into a single target. I learned this the hard way when she smells rat but strikes at me. So i have to make sure the rat is hair dryed until it is hotter than i am. She never strikes without a food stimulation smell but when she smells food she will just go for the hottest target.

What I do now to feed her is heat the rat to well above natural temperature and put it in her tub. She will circle it for a while, then when it has cooled to a natural heat level for a food item she will have it. Much safer that way...lol I have no idea if this is some type of head wobble associated behaviour because i have never observed head wobble in her but I have never had any other snake striking in the wrong direction either ?

Opinions ?

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

It's worth it to note that the very first snake retrieved from the wild as an adult had a wobble, but that didn't meaningfully impact his ability to hunt and feed for himself or otherwise function as a normal snake until humans intervened. When I first heard about the wobble and found some videos on line, I thought I would be turned off by it, but turns out I just love the morph and its combos way too much.

That said, when I get into breeding, I am going to be VERY selective about which snakes I purchase, hold back, and pair up. To my knowledge everyone has just accepted it as 'a thing' and no one has attemted to see if careful line breeding could reduce or eliminate the effect. I want f it's possible to produce snakes with little to no wobble. Who knows, maybe I'll be the first to produce a low to wobbless line ;)

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Breeders have been trying to do this for many, many years. The general consensus is thats it's random and there's no way to eliminate it through selective breeding. The wobble is here to stay unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by Paul's Pieds

i had always believed that spider wobble lessened when combined with other genes - somehow watered it down

but

i had 2 spiders in the past where i did not observe wobble

i now have a mojave bee which exhibits a rather odd feeding behaviour.

When she smells rat she will strike out - but not necessarily at the rat. It is like she cannot combine the senses of heat detection and smell detection into a single target. I learned this the hard way when she smells rat but strikes at me. So i have to make sure the rat is hair dryed until it is hotter than i am. She never strikes without a food stimulation smell but when she smells food she will just go for the hottest target.

What I do now to feed her is heat the rat to well above natural temperature and put it in her tub. She will circle it for a while, then when it has cooled to a natural heat level for a food item she will have it. Much safer that way...lol I have no idea if this is some type of head wobble associated behaviour because i have never observed head wobble in her but I have never had any other snake striking in the wrong direction either ?

Opinions ?

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Far from being unusual when feeding F/T to a spider or spider combo, this is also part of the wobble.

Not much you can do about it.

One thing I forgot earlier temperatures also affect the wobble, based on what I have seen Spider tend to do better at lower temperatures (88 max)

And of course as far as selective breeding sadly animal that show very little wobble can produce train wrecks and vice versa just like a young animal can go from severe to mild wobble and vice versa.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Johnk

Breeders have been trying to do this for many, many years. The general consensus is thats it's random and there's no way to eliminate it through selective breeding. The wobble is here to stay unfortunately.

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Interesting! My searches were unable to turn up any specific breeders or projects. Do you have any links I can review? I'd love to see what they did/how they did it.

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Interesting! My searches were unable to turn up any specific breeders or projects. Do you have any links I can review? I'd love to see what they did/how they did it.

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I'd have to get on my computer to do a better search but on worldofballpythons.com Mike wilbanks talks about how people thought the wobble might have come from too much inbreeding but he believes it's the most out crossed morph or one of them out there. He basically says it can't be bred out and anything with spider has it. some might be very, very subtle and only when feeding. All the way up to the really bad ones that seem to have constant vertigo and need to be assist fed. It's a crapshoot basically is what I came away with. He definitely seems to know what he's doing and knows his stuff. I decided not to work with the gene just in case I do get a bad one that needs to be assist fed it's whole life. Cause I wouldn't sell it and I'd feel bad about its loss of a realish life.

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Originally Posted by Johnk

I'd have to get on my computer to do a better search but on worldofballpythons.com Mike wilbanks talks about how people thought the wobble might have come from too much inbreeding but he believes it's the most out crossed morph or one of them out there. He basically says it can't be bred out and anything with spider has it. some might be very, very subtle and only when feeding. All the way up to the really bad ones that seem to have constant vertigo and need to be assist fed. It's a crapshoot basically is what I came away with. He definitely seems to know what he's doing and knows his stuff. I decided not to work with the gene just in case I do get a bad one that needs to be assist fed it's whole life. Cause I wouldn't sell it and I'd feel bad about its loss of a realish life.

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Oh yeah, I know it's part of the gene and def not due to inbreeding. If inbreeding were the case it would disappear in the three or four generations removed from the base morph easily, but even those GHI-pastave-spider-what-have-yous can display it when not having been crossed back to a spider since the first one at all. I was thinking something closer to a polygenic project- breeding individuals for each consecutive generation that have the least amount of visible wobble both as adults and hatchlings. To my knowledge that hasn't been attempted yet, but if I'm wrong I'd sure like to hear about it before starting in on my own haha.

This is why you will never see a spider gene in my collection. I can't see wanting to produce something knowing I'm rolling the dice on neurological issues. I'm not a big fan of the spider combos either. The only ones I like are the Pastel Sugar Spiders with the high white pixelated sides.

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Originally Posted by BrianDallek

This is why you will never see a spider gene in my collection. I can't see wanting to produce something knowing I'm rolling the dice on neurological issues. I'm not a big fan of the spider combos either. The only ones I like are the Pastel Sugar Spiders with the high white pixelated sides.

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So you are not going to breed your Mimosa?

I was aware of the wobble when I went purchased Giovanni (my lesser bee). I wasn't totally clear on what morphs I was going to have at first, and the thought of a neurological tick didn't exactly put spiders high on my list, but as soon as I saw him up on an auction site I absolutely had to have him. When I first took him out of his bag, he almost corkscrewed right out of my grip. His wobble is certainly very pronounced (I have a video of him wobbling around while being handled, I'll upload it some time maybe). He always has pretty long tongue flicks, and he'll wobble regardless of whether I'm handling him or if he's just hanging out in his tub, so I don't really think it's because I'm stressing him out; that's just the way he is.

Does it bother me? No, not really.

He's a lovely snake. He locked up just fine with my big girl (made me laugh every time I would peek open the tub to check on him. He would roll his head back and look at me like he wanted a fist bump or something.) and is a very enthusiastic eater, so I can't say that even his severe wobble has much of an effect on his quality of life. If he doesn't seem to mind it, then neither do I.

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Originally Posted by Daigga

He would roll his head back and look at me like he wanted a fist bump or something.

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This made me giggle, I can picture it. The more I read about the spider wobble, the more I want to add one to my collection.

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Originally Posted by Ransack

So you are not going to breed your Mimosa?

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The Mimosa was a birthday gift for my wife... it is her favorite drink and she thought he looked cute. He shows no sign of wobble nor has any champagne that I've seen in person. My plan has been to pick up a different male ghost for my black pewter ghost female in a year or so, but your right I have toyed with the idea of using him. It is my belief that champagnes are considerably less likely to have wobble than spiders, but that could be wrong. I will say that if I did use him and offspring had wobbles I would never breed him again. Some people continue to breed spiders even after seeing their offspring have bad wobbles.

I believe some womas also have a wobble issue.

I currently have a spider, albino spider and champagne. The spider and champagne usually show a head tilt and/or wobble during feeding. The albino spider is a corkscrewing mess but eats and is growing great :gj:

Got my first spyder gene recently, a subadult Enchi Bee, so far you have to really look hard to see a slight tilt or wobble when handling or feeding, otherwise she is steady, so must be lucky, even more lucky that she is so beautiful, gentle, and easy to feed and care for. I've been working with other reptiles for the past decade or so, and they don't have half of the morphs over twice the timespan of Ball Pythons. The last BP I had was a sickly captive hatched normal about 15 years ago, at that time about the only morph you saw regularly were Albinos. We're still in the early days of morphs, and a boom in reptiles generally, most weren't around a mere 10 or 15 years ago, compared to centuries old dog breeds. Maybe one day there will be a spyder line that doesn't wobble, carmel Albinos that don't kink, and Desert clutches that hatch, but not yet. For now breeders are jumping into the gold rush, and building a huge foundation of morphs for the bright future of the hobby, there are bound to be some unintended consequences along the way, as long as the animal's quality of life doesn't suffer, and with wobbles it doesn't appear to, then I don't have a problem with it.

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Originally Posted by BrianDallek

Some people continue to breed spiders even after seeing their offspring have bad wobbles.

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This is because the degree in which the spider wobbles is completely random. Wobble-less spiders can produce trainwrecks, and trainwrecks can produce wobble-less spiders.

The same goes for your champagnes and womas, though I have never seen a trainwreck version of either.

Again, it comes down to preference really. I'm in the opinion that if it does not affect the quality of life or life span, then it's okay. I also enjoy taking pictures of my snakes, and I'm not a fan of the kinked look lol. I don't mind that some super-black-pastels/cinnys have duckbills, because it doesn't appear to stop them from eating or drinking like a regular ball python. If anything, it's kindof cute looking.

Super lessers/butters have bulgy eyes. Doesn't seem to affect them really. Also, my granite line seems to have a smaller than usual head, yet my female is also one of my best feeders :P.

Not trying to be redundant here, but I figure listing multiple examples might help get my point across. But I digress. Agree to disagree :gj:! Good luck with your champ!

I have an 1100g male Bumblebee that reminds me of snoopy when he acts like he's a WWI fighter pilot doing barrel rolls. He's very entertaining, and most family/friends are willing to come closer to him than the ones that lay there and stare at you. With as crazy of a corkscrew ride he thinks he is on, he seems to lose it when it's feeding time. He has a lot of focus for food. My wife loves the wobble and wants more like him. We have 3 Bumblebees. Our large female is currently breeding with a Black Pastel Kingpin. I'm sure my lovely wife will want to keep all the babies...:colbert:

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

It's worth it to note that the very first snake retrieved from the wild as an adult had a wobble, but that didn't meaningfully impact his ability to hunt and feed for himself or otherwise function as a normal snake until humans intervened. When I first heard about the wobble and found some videos on line, I thought I would be turned off by it, but turns out I just love the morph and its combos way too much.

That said, when I get into breeding, I am going to be VERY selective about which snakes I purchase, hold back, and pair up. To my knowledge everyone has just accepted it as 'a thing' and no one has attemted to see if careful line breeding could reduce or eliminate the effect. I want f it's possible to produce snakes with little to no wobble. Who knows, maybe I'll be the first to produce a low to wobbless line ;)

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There are known neurological effects in other species with 'spider' patterns - sometimes genes have multiple functions in development of an organism - it may not be possible to uncouple 'spider' with 'wobble'. (completely worth trying if you love spiders, though! :gj: )

My first morph Ball python is a Spider with slight wobble. I knew that spiders could wobble, but I'd never watched any videos showing it, or seen one in person. It was pretty hilarious to see him bobbing his head back and forth like crazy when we went to see/buy him. After getting settled into his new home, he wobbles a lot less, so it seems to be a stress-linked thing, at least for him.
Most of the time he's fine - until his nose bumps into a surface, and then his head bobs quickly from side to side. My boyfriend has nicknamed him "Gord Downey" after the singer in the Tragically Hip, who does a similar head bob. Lol

Anyway, I'm in the school of thought that if it doesn't impact their quality of life, then there is no problem. I am prepared for the possibility of having to euthanize hatchlings who are "trainwrecks" to the point of being unable to eat. It doesn't seem like it's terribly common to be that severe, though.

My guy is a spinner blast and shows no wobble except when he telescopes while he is swallowing his meal. I reasoned that this is because he is young and his muscles aren't at full strenggth yet. I would love to breed him to an enchee firefly, when he's ready, i'm in no rush, would this work to keep the possibility of a wobble low. I know there is spider in the morph i have, thats why i am not breeding spinner blast to spinner blast, even though i love this morph , its my favorite.

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Originally Posted by Ransack

I am going to quote this post, because I have six snakes with the spider gene in my collection and only have one snake that shows a hint of wobble, (Spinner male) he is a voracious eater and is fun and inquisitive and is my sons favorite snake.

The point I am trying to make with this is it does exist but is very overblown in my opinion with some people even having an agenda.

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I'm glad you've had good luck with yours but you wouldn't think it was overblown if you've hatched out any that were hard core train wrecks. I've hatched a few like that, one female that could NOT eat unless I held the rat up against the side of her neck, another one that always needed help shedding because it just couldn't coordinate itself well enough to crawl out of it's own skin (and also needed help feeding). MOST spiders I've produced in the past have been fine and I currently DO have spiders in my collection, but only because of the other genes they carry. I'm not against spiders, most of the morphs look great. But all things being equal, I'd prefer not to have to deal with them in my collection.

I suspect that most people who own spiders wonder what the fuss is all about but then again I suspect that most of the real train wrecks never leave the breeders facility so the general public never gets a chance to see them.

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?

2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

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Originally Posted by paulh

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction?

2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

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well, I don't think question #2 would be possible to answer. There has never been a homozygous spider produced and it's suspected that homozygous is lethal so it wouldn't make any difference breeding brother to sister.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

well, I don't think question #2 would be possible to answer. There has never been a homozygous spider produced and it's suspected that homozygous is lethal so it wouldn't make any difference breeding brother to sister.

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Question 2 is not designed to produce a homozygous spider. It is designed to collect supplementary genes that minimize the wobbling into the end population. Think 10-15 pairs of supplementary genes.

So you think it's possible that you could 'breed it out' of the spider morph? It's worth a shot I suppose, but it should be noted that spiders that barely wobble at all will produce spiders that wobble a LOT.

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Originally Posted by paulh

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?

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I don't think anyone knows. I haven't heard of anyone doing any kind of scans on the brain to find out, but there is plenty of evidence to point at it being a neurological tick and not just a misfire in the eyes or labial pits.

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2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

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I wouldn't have much hope for this project. Snakes with no noticable wobble have been known to produce train wrecks and vice versa. The severity of the parent's wobble doesn't seem to have an effect on the wobble of the offspring. I'd like to believe the wobble could be bred out, but seeing as spider is one of the oldest established morphs among ball pythons and the wobble still exists, I don't know that it's possible to do.

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3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

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This I have no clue. To my knowledge BP keepers don't use much dietary supplements since there usually isn't any kind of need, so I don't think anyone could tell you if it helps or not. If it's a neurological/genetic disorder, I honestly don't know if supplementation can be used to suppress symptoms in individuals, let alone the offspring.

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Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

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Focusing on the males could cut the time down some? 6-9 months makes a male generation. I would be interested to see someone pursue these questions and find out a little more about this sometimes nasty side effect and how to curb it.

I would think if it were possible to breed out the defective gene it would have been done by now especially in light of how long this morph has been around and how many people have them. To my knowledge it's still one of the most popular and common genes out there on the market. Another argument against being able to breed it out is the fact that all Spider morps can trace their lineage back to one wild caught snake, there has never been another wild caught spider.

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Originally Posted by paulh

Question 2 is not designed to produce a homozygous spider. It is designed to collect supplementary genes that minimize the wobbling into the end population. Think 10-15 pairs of supplementary genes.

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With there being at best scattered data of spider x spider pairings at all, zero data about those offspring in relation to the homozygous spider, question 2 is asking quite a bit.

Honestly I wouldn't see why we couldn't, supplementary genes or epigenetics, you would figure something would start to show through, but it is unknown what it is and how long it could take.

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Originally Posted by paulh

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?

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It's really, really hard to get permission to look at vertebrate brains in scientific research - even the 'unpopular' animals (e.g. rats, mice are less sympathetic to the public than bunnies) and even for research that has direct impacts on human disease treatment.

If you could get snake owners/breeders from all over to donate naturally deceased spider-gene-containing animals, you could do some autopsy comparisons, but my guess is that 'wobble' is a biochem or live tissue problem - brains the size of ball pythons don't typically have architectural defects without lethality. Furthermore, there is no degeneration of the 'wobble' (critters don't get worse), so whatever it is, it's stable within the individual.

The University of California at Berkeley has a preparatory lab that accepts donated animals of all kinds (really) for dissection by classes and lab techs for species descriptions, preservation, and comparative anatomy. They might need a small donation/grant/endowment to set up enough space and time to look at that many of a single species, but if you're really excited about it, you should contact them and see!

Our lesser bee wobbled pretty bad when small, but now that she is growing i rarely see it anymore

I know this thread is getting a bit old now so maybe a lot of people have stopped reading it but i returned to it and saw the comments about trying to fix it with brother to sister mattings.

I am just wondering if some of the genetic problems in snakes (and indeed many pets) is actually due to inbreeding. In some animals it is avoidable due to the size of the genetic pool but in the issue of ball pythons where all known morphs can often be traced to a single animal surely it is the mother to son, father to daughter, brother to sister matings that has put the defect into the animal in the first place ?

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Originally Posted by Paul's Pieds

I know this thread is getting a bit old now so maybe a lot of people have stopped reading it but i returned to it and saw the comments about trying to fix it with brother to sister mattings.

I am just wondering if some of the genetic problems in snakes (and indeed many pets) is actually due to inbreeding. In some animals it is avoidable due to the size of the genetic pool but in the issue of ball pythons where all known morphs can often be traced to a single animal surely it is the mother to son, father to daughter, brother to sister matings that has put the defect into the animal in the first place ?

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No, not with this example. Bear in mind that due the issues around any pairing from wobble genes, such pairings are very rare (the super spider and wobble gene to wobble gene combos are said to be lethal). Knowing this, breeding spider gene carrying siblings together or back to the parents almost never happens just on principle. With these pairings being very few and far between, I would say with certainty that inbreeding was not a cause of the wobble, nor does it contribute to its continuation.

Many genetic problems in domestic animals are due to inbreeding. That is certainly true in dogs and mice.

I do not believe that the wobble in spider ball pythons is due to inbreeding. As spider bred to normal produces both spider and normal babies, the temptation has always been to breed a spider male to multiple normal females, for maximum return on investment. There was only one imported spider, so that first mating had to have been to one or more normals. And World of Ball Pythons gives 1999 for the first produced date. That is only 16 years ago. I do not know whether that imported royal is still alive, but its offspring could easily still be alive and breeding. Both outbreeding and inbreeding can produce train wrecks from a minimal wobble parent. But selective breeding would be required to produce lines with minimal wobble, and that requires inbreeding. Choosing two spiders for parents tells us that both have minimal wobble. If one parent is a normal sibling, there is no way to be sure whether or not it has the additional genes for minimal wobble. Such breeding might throw some light on the homozygous spider question, but that's a beneficial side effect to the project.

I do not know whether is possible to produce a totally wobble-free spider ball python. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Covering the eyes or the labial pits would eliminate information from those sense organs. If a part of the brain misinterprets such information and thus causes the wobble, then cutting off the information to that part of the brain could reduce or eliminate the wobble. I think it is interesting that everyone says the wobble is worst at feeding time, when eye and labial pit information is most depended on.