Odd mouth area - pic attached

[gone_awry]

Hi, I just noticed some of the scales near my juvenile ball python’s mouth look strange. I haven’t noticed it before, but I haven’t had him too long and he’s just now really comfortable enough to get right in my face so I could see it. There is nothing oozing, no blood, no issues with his appetite and he just completed a beautiful one-piece shed and ate the next day. Any idea what this is? Thanks in advance.

Hmm... I can’t get the pic to show up.
https://ibb.co/CtkB5V1

[L.West]

First tine I've seen that. Almost looks like a deformity of some sort.

If he is eating and shedding fine then hopefully it won't cause him any problems

[gone_awry]

Thank you! That was my thought as well, and much preferable to something like an infection. I’ve never seen anything like it before either and it freaked me out.

[L.West]

hopefully others with more experience will chime in. It doesn't look like mouth rot to me but I've never personally dealt with it before

[Bogertophis]

Just appears to be a little defect that he hatched out with. Breeder/source should have noticed it & acknowledged it (& discounted some), but I don't think it's going to
cause any trouble for a pet snake. However, if you planned to breed ever, I wouldn't breed this one as there's no way to know if it's genetic or just a fluke due to
incubation irregularities.

[gone_awry]

Thank you! He’s just a pet, so if it’s a deformity and doesn’t affect his health, I’m okay with it. I do wish the breeder had mentioned it, but they did not.

[Bogertophis]

Don't lose any sleep over it then...if you don't point it out to people, they'll never see it, most likely. Plenty of snakes have minor quirks...for that matter, so do many humans.