hooks?

[Blake_Herman]

Alright, this may be a stupid question but I'm a little curious... I picked up Pythons of the World Vol. II: Ball Pythons by Dave and Tracey Barker recently. And in the book, there's a small part that discusses "hooks". They describe a hook as a small abnormality in the pattern (pic below), and according to the book, this often indicates that an otherwise normal appearing ball python, is actually het for an "interesting trait".



My question is how accurate is this? And how often does it actually mark a het? Does anyone have more information on these markings or heard anything different? Thanks.

[plummer]

idk but i wanna know now lol

[cueball]

Hooks are cool



Hearts are better

[aaajohnson]

I don't have Dave & Tracy's book (yet), what "interesting trait" are we talking about?

Neil

[aaajohnson]

We did this pairing last year because of the "hooks".

Het Pied male ... Normal female (at least I think she is normal)



Neil

[Blake_Herman]

well thanks cue, that was helpful...

and the book didn't specify what "interesting trait", that's just the exact phrasing they used so I thought I would use it the same way... So I'm guessing it could be anything really...

[cueball]

well thanks cue, that was helpful...

If you liked that..then this will surely strike your fancy

[jdmls88]

its interesting that you say that cuz im getting a VPI line pastel that has a hook in it
see at bottom. I geuss ill have to breed him out

[Blake_Herman]

I guess technically the pastel could be het for opal (super pastel)...

this is the one from my collection that I'm curious about. As far as I know, he's just a captive hatched male... but he's bright, and he has that distinct hook... same ball as in the first pic I posted with this thread...

And if it is true, then it would come down to trying to figure out the most obvious thing for it to be het for, and could survive in the wild long enough to reproduce (such as a ghost maybe?)... I'm just going to breed my male out and see what happens, but I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea if you could pair it up with a het that it's likely to be...?

[mischevious21]

Hmmm, I dont know. Ive got a male mojave on the way and he has a hook or teo in his pattern.. Thats interesting though.