How to identify the Fire gene in combos?

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...310_202233.jpg
The pet shop stated that this is a lesser/butter fire, aka nuclear, ball python. It is supposed to get lighter and lighter when she grows up due to the fire gene. However, after she gaining some weight (close to 200g now) and shed once, it seems that she looks like a normal butter rather than having fire in it.
So my question is what morph you guys think she is and how do you identify the fire gene in multi gene combos. Thank you.

Well.... From what I've seen a Lesser + Butter is an all white snake, I'd say that there is no Lesser in that one. Fire is tough as well, the best way is to compare the entire clutch and the lighter / brighter snakes will have Fire in them assuming one of the parents had it. I'm not sure about the Fire, but it looks like a normal Butter to me. Butters are so variable, it could have Fire in there... I'd have to see the siblings.

Nuclear = Butter + Fire (no Lesser in Nuclear)

I actually have a Fire Pied ball python. It had really intense colors when it was young but now is really light / faded / washed out.

Oh I think my expression is misleading. I mean it is either butter or lesser but not butter lesser which is a BEL as you said. I have heard that lesser and butter are extremely similar and many people believe that they are the same gene but different blood line. I hope more people can identify the morph for me.

I do believe your snake could have fire in it. But like Cchardwick said, without seeing it next to a sibling it is near impossible to say for sure. The reason I said I think it does is because the color is similar to my lesser pastel. I believe if it was just lesser it would be darker. The problem is, it could just be a light lesser, they do seem to vary quite a bit from light to dark. If it was sold to you as lesser fire, I would assume it is though unless you prove otherwise by breeding it.

That is not just a base Lesser or Butter........
I would assume its a Butter Fire without question but the only real way to prove it out would be to breed her.

I am not seeing fire in this one sorry.

Thank you guys! I hope she has fire since I can make some more combos with that. But if she is only a light butter or lesser, I still have a gorgeous snake and I love her to death.

Just did some research and many sources state that the fire ball python has a head stamp on it. But I can't see any head stamp on my snake. So we can conclude that she is just a lesser? Or there are exceptional cases that some fire ball does not have a head stamp?

I am with Pit on this. There is more than just Lesser there. By the picture, I am not seeing fire because of the missing head stamp, but I have seen fire combos without it. I would be a million times easier to tell in this case if there was a picture of the entire clutch.

It'd also be much easier to ID if you knew what the parents were [emoji6]

Ask the pet store, hopefully they bred it or someone who stops by often that they could ask did.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks like an older lesser or butter. When they are young they have very rich colors, and as they get older those colors fade more and more, leading to something that looks like this at a certain point. Which will continue to fade more.

But that's just my two cents as someone who has worked with lessers and fires.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oxylepy

Looks like an older lesser or butter. When they are young they have very rich colors, and as they get older those colors fade more and more, leading to something that looks like this at a certain point. Which will continue to fade more.

But that's just my two cents as someone who has worked with lessers and fires.

---

Snake is 200 grams.

I was pretty interested in this because I have a pastel lesser and a butter fire enchi and was really just wanting to learn a little more about the differences in these morphs so I looked up as many pictures of the combos as I could find. Yours looks absolutely nothing like my butter fire enchi, obviously the enchi adds a much different pattern but I wasn't sure how much it changed the color. From what I found, even though mine has enchi in it, the colors are way too far off for me to think yours is even possibly butter fire. From the pictures I found of butter fire, the colors are much closer to mine, yours just doesn't match so I think Fire is out. Then I went back to my original thought that yours does remind me of my lesser pastel but after looking at many pictures and mine, the one thing that stands out as not matching is the darkness in yours head. All the combos with pastel have a noticeable fading of the head color, so I think it's safe to say that's out too. This leads me to yours just being a nice bright lesser or butter. Out of many pictures of lesser/butter, yours does look brighter than a lot but there were quite a few that did look just like yours. I think the only way to prove otherwise would be to prove it through breeding. It's really not important if your not specifically breeding to produce something with fire. I would just be happy to have a nice example of the lesser/butter morph and enjoy it. :)

Thank you! Without any head stamps, I think she is just a very light lesser or butter. She is so light that the breeder thought she is a lesser fire. Anyway, I am going to buy a boy for her. What butter combos do you guys like the most? I may buy a enchi bumblebee to work on The White Walker.

I am not seeing fire, but like Pit said, I see more than just a Butter. The "eyes" of the "alien heads" are changed from a normal Butter. It looks like a granite influence more than anything to me. In my experience, Fire doesn't bring in a broken, granite like pattern. You would have to know what the parents were to have a better chance of guessing what your snake is.

My 200g lesser pastel still looks like a baby. My 350g lesser pastel looks like her father. My 150g lesser looks like a baby still.

So I'd say at 200g, it should still look like it did after its first few sheds. As such, this snake is likely another color morph on top of the basic lesser or butter. Notably a color morph which doesn't enhance fading. Check butter or lesser morphs on the morphlist. Look at baby bp pics, as adult pictures of those morphs will be extremely misleading

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...326_163228.jpg

This is a closer look. The pattern is really messy IMO and it seems that there are no "eyes' in those "alien heads".

What I meant is that most Blue Eye Leucistic complex genes either have no "eyes" in the alien heads, or one large "eye". Your's has flecks or speckling that are more typical of a "granite" pattern. I don't think I have seen a Lesser or Butter do that without another gene. The best example I can give would be how adding Yellowbelly to Mojave changes the large, single "eye" into speckles. You can see in this picture how the Mojave (lower right) has large single "eyes", but how the Orangebelly Mojave has the "granite" pattern where the "eye" should be. Your snake looks like it has more than just Butter or Lesser because where the single, large "eye", or nothing, should be, there are speckles.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...14-08-16_4.jpg

Just did some research on the yellow belly stuff. I found that the lesser yellowbelly looks quite alike to my girl.
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../lesser_yb.jpg
This is the lesser yellowbelly with the sparkles you mentioned on the alien heads.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...331_193743.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...331_193812.jpg
These are the belly shot of my girl. Do you guys think she has yellowbelly? Without the head stamp, I still think she is just a light butter. Also, the pet shop could not trace the parents of my snake.

Yellow belly is a hard one for me to point out in combo morphs but I don't see any reason to just start looking for other morphs in her. The speckles in the alien heads are not as common as eyes or blank but you can find lessors listed on morph market that look almost identical to yours, speckles and all. Your not going to be able to just say it's some combo of morphs, it just isn't obvious enough. Stick with whats known, lesser or butter, until you prove her to be something other than that through breeding. Just one more reason not to get your ball python from a petstore. If you had plans of breeding, why in the world would you get your breeders from a place like that?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by canicemok

Just did some research on the yellow belly stuff. I found that the lesser yellowbelly looks quite alike to my girl.
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../lesser_yb.jpg
This is the lesser yellowbelly with the sparkles you mentioned on the alien heads.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...331_193743.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...331_193812.jpg
These are the belly shot of my girl. Do you guys think she has yellowbelly? Without the head stamp, I still think she is just a light butter. Also, the pet shop could not trace the parents of my snake.

---

If the mystery gene is there and it is yellowbelly there may be no for sure way to tell other than breeding it to something like an ivory. Yellowbelly can enhance a lot of stuff but it would take a far better eye than mine to positively pick it out of certain combos.

This is my Nuclear...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f99ed9ecaa.jpg

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk