The Condition on Some Morphs Known as "Wobble"

[Snake Man 27]

I was just wondering something. I have a Spider Ball Python I received and he has a slight "wobble" to him. He has no eating problems and IMO his wobble is not very severe so I am assuming this is normal in Spiders and some other morphs? Does it affect their lifespan? Just a few questions there, hope someone can answer them, thanks so much!

[Snake Man 27]

Also I was wondering what other morphs have this condition?

[OhhWatALoser]

Yes it is normal for some morphs, spiders being the most popular. The condition itself does not effect their life span, but it could be severe enough to effect them from physically doing things to live. There only been a few claims of spiders having a wobble this severe out of tens of thousands of spiders. Here is a write up I did: http://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php

[Snake Man 27]

Yes it is normal for some morphs, spiders being the most popular. The condition itself does not effect their life span, but it could be severe enough to effect them from physically doing things to live. There only been a few claims of spiders having a wobble this severe out of tens of thousands of spiders. Here is a write up I did: http://www.owalreptiles.com/issues.php

Thanks soooo much! That makes me feel much better!

[Brandonrez]

I also have a spider, and he has a very little wobble he had more when I first got him but not serious but he has less now(he is now 347 grams). But why I am replying to this thread is it seems he strikes very slow and misses a lot. I also have a normal ball a little older, little bigger he always Catches on first strike (btw I feed live). My spider can miss up to 2 times in a row before he finally gets a accurate strike.

[Mike41793]

I have 3 animals with the spider gene. Two dont wobble at all and only way they're "spidery" is because they just hold their heads a little bit odd sometimes. My spider het hypo girl has the "spider wobble" though. She corkscrews when i have her out. She eats f/t so its not a big deal for feeding her. She still has a nice personality, just corkscrews when she gets worked up. It effects any bp, multi or single gene, with the spider gene in it. It doesn't effect their lifespan directly, but what it prevents them from being able to do could effect their lifespan, if they were in the wild.

[Anya]

My spider boy is always making me laugh....(is that wrong?) He doesn't wobble, and it doesn't effect his quality of life, but I can't help but giggle at some of the weird positions he gets himself in. We call him our 'special' snake.

[T&C Exotics]

The wobble can be anything from a really mild head tilt to corkscrewing. All spiders wobble to some extent there is no exception to that at all.

[LLLReptile]

For some reason, the wobble goes hand in hand with the spider trait. Outcrossing tends to minimize how much the trait expresses itself, but doesn't always take care of it.

Most spiders seem to have little or no wobble these days, although some with more severe cases are out there. As far as I know, the spider gene is the only one that so consistently has a problem with wobbles.

I personally think the spider gene is a great example of the community working together to eliminate a negative trait - by outcrossing and letting newbie keepers know about the trait, as a group it appears we have greatly minimized how severely and how often the trait is expressed. When spiders first came out, I seem to remember the wobble being a distinct thing with nearly every one.

In any case, the worst wobbling usually happens when the animal is stressed, and some animals that don't wobble at all may begin to wobble during extreme stress. My adult female wobbles only when she's been moved to a new cage; aside from that, there's no wobble to be seen at all.

-Jen

[Pythonfriend]

i dont think the wobble can be bred out. dominant morphs are typically the most outbred and outcrossed morphs, people combine it with anything and everything and have no motivation to do any inbreeding with this morph.

i think its just the gene, one gene that causes both: spider wobble and spider optics. if it would be two genes that are very close together, i think by now with the tens of thousands of spders produced, someone would already have lucked out and seperated the genes via a random chromosomal crossover.

champagne also has the wobble with quite a high consistency.