Volta/sub-Saharan royals - any experience?

[WrongPython]

I was listening to one of the many herp podcasts last night and heard mention of a "locality ball python" that was auctioned off recently. The only locality royals that I know of are the Voltas/sub-Saharans, which makes me think of them. The bit of reading I've done makes it sound like they have a few morphological differences from your average royal (massive size included). This makes me wonder if they may be a distinct population or even sub-species of P. regius.

Does anyone here have experience keeping Volta/sub-Saharan royals? Better yet, does anyone here have a "pure locality" breeding project for them going on? It sounds like those that breed them are rather tight-lipped, as I've only ever seen wild-caught imports on the market.

[Lord Sorril]

Several years ago: I knew a guy who got an adult Volta female (wild-caught) in a trade and his 'regular' males wouldn't cross with it (they freaked out and mashed their faces against the cage tops trying to escape). The female was chill. He asked me for breeding advice--I had nothing.

[Scooda954]

Very good post I’m curious myself only replying to bump

[asplundii]

Sub-Saharan is a misnomer, as the range for all ball pythons is"sub-Saharan".

Volta is a locality that has tended to have larger animals. It is not a distinct sub-species. In the past there were a number of breeders out there that have worked with them but the majority of this hobby is driven by colour/pattern morphs so no one really cared enough about Volta-types to keep pure lineages of them. Mostly they were used to try and make bigger females that laid more eggs so that breeders could crank out larger clutches from their multi-gene males.

The locality balls being auctioned off right now are not from Volta. I cannot remember off the top of my head where they are but they are part of the Southeast CarpetFest auction that is currently going on so you can search them out on there if you are so inclined (just follow/join the SECF page on Facebook). These specific animals are from Steven Tillis, who directly collected and imported them. There is nothing particularly unique about them morphologically, they are just known locality animals