I think this little guy is taking "granite" up a notch.......

[Ball Clan]

My first clutch of the year is hatching out finally. As of now, two of them are out, while there are 3 more peeping.

But this one little guy............

OK here are the parents:

Dad (Bryan) is a definite genetic granite.



This is mom (Brianna) who is being bred back to dad. I assumed she was normal because though she does have a minor amount of granite speckling, I didn't consider it enough to count.



Now I'm beginning to wonder.

While 2 of the eggs died (one never developed and went bad while the other baby got tangled in his umbilicus), all 5 of the surviving babies will be granites.

This is one of the two that is out, and three of the others appear that they will look similar to this one:


Same baby, belly shot:



And then there's this guy, who is just insane-looking:







Any ideas? I'm wondering if the granite maybe has a super form? I've produced granites from Bryan before, but this is the first year I could breed daughter back to him, and I've never produced anything like this before.

[sho220]

I would assume mom has the granite gene also? Neat looking babies. Congrats!

[Ball Clan]

Thanks. That's what I'm thinking also. She has to also be granite. The weird one is a male, I guess the next thing to do is see if he will prove out as a super? I can't seem to find out much about the granite gene. I have read about there being a super form, but I couldn't find much else except that there are several lines of granite and all of them seem to present themselves differently.

[bumblebee1028]

Congrats, they look really cool! I really like the darker baby!

[PitOnTheProwl]

To answer your question: http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/super-granite/

That is one cool looking guy.
Glad to know I am not the only one working with a couple granites.

[Ball Clan]

Thanks!

I also ran across this one last night:

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5562/dsc1350e.jpg


This person was apparently working with granites that look fairly similar to my original one.
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/fo...php?f=16&t=151

So maybe there's hope of proving him as a super. Only time will tell (and I thought the waiting was over lol).

[Charlottesmom1966]

Let me just say I know absolutly nothing about snake genetics and the mom and dad look pretty much the same to me with the exception of the number of dots on the dad's back. That being said that little dark boy is something special, he is a extreamly nice looking guy!

[MrLang]

Granite is a hard thing to find solid info on. I work with a granite that is either dom or co-dom (still haven't tried for super). What it looks like to me is that both of you parents are low expression granites and the super dark guy with the big drag in pattern behind his head is the super form. Either that or he is a high expression version. I believe most granite is co-dom though.

[Ball Clan]

Thanks everyone. Hopefully I can have the other 3 siblings out of the eggs this afternoon and get some pictures up of the entire clutch.

The one I labeled B2 may be this possible super as well, but I can't get a good enough look until it gets out of the egg. The one that died in the egg did not appear to express granite at all, so given 6 viable eggs, it would stand to reason that I might have a no-expression, several granites, and a super (or two), considering that a het to het cross should yield roughly a 1:2:1 phenotype ratio.

Looks like I'll be repeating this pairing next year to get more data, not to mention hanging on to a female from this bunch.......

[PitOnTheProwl]

Looks like yours a proven genetic.
There are so many granites that are not, I wonder if that is why so many dont deal with them. Breed that little black dude bqck and see what happens.