Morphs

[BallKingdom]

The morph forum appears dead so I figured I'd spruce it up with a little bit of morph politics. These are just my opinions, and it's probly gonna be a long rant.

With ball python morphs in their peek it appears a lot of people want to jump in on the hype. Big name morphs like albino, piebald, and spiders certainly aren't what I'm talking about. But every time you turn around someone has a bp up for sale, with some fancy name. For example "reduced pattern, blushing, ect" And you see the price jacked up $20. You need to limit this somewhere! When I see something a little different, I consider it a normal. I might call it a high gold normal or something, because it does have a bit excess yellow pigment. But to assume it's a morph is nuts! Everyone is looking to make a few bucks, so any little difference makes it a morph, Pffft. It's just too many things are being called morphs, and a good 90% of them are simply normals. You got people on other forums who buy into this morph hype, and then start threads asking "What morph is this" I open them up hoping to see a variant pastel or something cool. But it's a normal. Happens a lot. People need a good smack in the face sometimes. It's nuts, you get th idea by now I hope.

Another thing on my mind is the future of morphs. This time I'm talking about albinos, piebads, and any other real morphs. I hope it doesn't become as nuts as it has for corn snakes and leopard geckos. Everyone has a morph, and they're the same price as norms. Too many to count off. Over bred, and overly available. I got into ball pythons because I loved how exotic and wild normals looked. It's already to the point where it's border-line embarassing to own "just a normal" On KS for instance, I see al kinds of threads labeled "My bp, just a normal" Stand tall and be pround you own such an amazing snake, it may be normal but it doesn't cheapen them.

I'm a fanatic of "normals" of all species. Corns, leopards, ect. I like morphs as well. But I hope Bp's don't follow the same path as corns. Just my opinion. I'd love a spider or snow tho.

Hehe

[Jeanne]

I agree with you on the normals being labeled as morphs. Just last week I contacted a guy who had a normal listed as "designer" on KS. So I opened it up, and it was JUST a normal. Nothing any different than most. I emailed the guy, told him that from what I could see, what he was labeling a "designer" looked like a normal. Dont get me wrong, I have normals, and there is nothing wrong with them. In the email, I also asked him what his definaition of "designer" was. He emailed me the next morning. What a laugh. His reply was..this snake is "abberrent". And he wanted to know what my definition of designer was. I have heard the term aberrant used before with snakes, but could not remember the definition. So, I got out my trusty dictionary, and could not even find the word he gave me, he spelled aberrant wrong. That was a laugh in itself....like duh, learn to spell dil-hole. First of all here is the word and its defianition.

Aberrant: Wandering from; deviating from the established rule.

Ok, then does that make every normal bp out there "designer" cause thier patterns are different from eachother? I think not. They are just different. In fact, I have seen many bp's at work, and I have never seen 2 with the same pattern or any thing, even the coloring is slightly different. LOL Maybe we should all be like this tard who is selling "designer" bp's... and start calling all bp's designer. Come on now, when you hear the word designer, you think like designer name clothes, perfume and the like.. but surely not bp's.He cant be a bp designer cause he cant sit down and draw out each and every one by hand and produce a living breathing bp that looks like what is in his pic, and if he can, I would think he would be aweful rich by now. Also, how is there a rule of any sort for how a normal is suppose to look? Makes ya think dont it.

In the end, I ended up sending him a rather nasty email, maybe I should have restrained myself, but could not help it. Because of cornholes like him, those who know next to nothing about a snake are going to take his word for what it is, and spend way to much for an animal they could spend a lot less for and still be happy with, and also that person takes a chance that he may look like an ass. Telling his buddy down the road, I got this morph, blah blah blah. And his buddy comes over and takes a look at it, and says "hey dipstick, thats not a morph of any kind, it is a normal and you got over charged". In my email to this cornhole, I told him to go back to school and learn to spell, or at least look in a dictionary and get the right spelling instead of looking dumb, and gave him the right spelling and definition for the word, and explained that using his definition, all bp's could be called "aberrant", making them all "designer".

OK, my rant is over, but what Peter said got me to thinking about this cornhole, and I just had to share this with you all. LOL

[BallKingdom]

By the by, my rant didn't cover hets. We all know that they may look normal, but have the genes.

Yeah, people pull that stuff on KS a lot. There is a lot of fraud there. Sometimes I go through hoping to spot yet another photoshopped pics. I once found an albino trio for sale. Man was it fake. It was a cropped pic put near some normals. I laughed pretty hard. I'd never buy off an add in KS. If I were ever going to spend over 200.00 for just the herp, I'd go with a good breeder.

[sfirth]

A quick story regarding these 'morphs'. I was recently at a reptile show in my area. One of the vendors (I had never heard of them) had a table full of normal ball pythons, each going around $30 - $75, pretty much what you would expect. As a friend of mine and I scanned the deli cups, we noticed that there were 2 that were marked at $1000 each. Of course we had to ask why, as on the surface they looked like the others. We were thinking hets, maybe? No, the vendor proceeded to point out some barely visible white outlining aroundthe 'alien head' patterns. Asking what he thought justified the price tag, he kind of smirked, shrugged his soldiers, and replied "It might be something, who knows..." We all just have to rember to be careful, and use common sense. It is amazing the creative labels (and pricetags) people are putting on normal ball python.

[invadertoast]

Y'know how the stripe that goes from the nostril to the back of the head on some BPs connects back to the white on their chin, and on some it doesn't? I wonder if anybody's ever tried to pass that off as a morph, lol

[BallKingdom]

Thats fraud! 1,000 just cause it has some cool white? Insane.

[sfirth]

I totally agree. I was almost ready to start looking for the hidden camera. The worst part was the little smirk on his face, as he knew what he was doing. I am surprised he was able to keep a straight face. I know we couldn't!

[Wizill]

I've seen 'high gold' normals priced as high as 300 dollars. Mine is considered high gold, and was only 70ish...

[Hoomi]

"High gold" normals? That means they cost "high gold"? <grin>

Dangit, I think I just realized that Phil doesn't look EXACTLY like any other Ball Python on the planet. That must make him a unique individual, and therefore worth some BIG BUCKS!

Whatever was the breeder thinking when he sold him to me for only $35??? Wow! What a deal I got! He must be worth thousands, at least!

Two applicable quotes on such things:

"Caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware)

and

"There's a sucker born every minute!"

I don't think I would buy even a Het from someone unless I knew the breeder well enough to trust that I was actually getting a het, and not just a normal that they wanted to boost the profit margin on.

[BallKingdom]

Your right, no two bp's looks alike. Too many "normal" variations in colors, patterns, size, and stripes. There is a fine line between morph and normal variant. A ball python with a complete stripe down the spine, I'd consider a morph, if proven genetic then great. Same with complete black backs. Reduced patterns are tricky, it'd need to be very highly reduced for me to consider it.

Normal variants include high gold, granite, partial stripes, and too many others. Blushing is fraid though.