is size genetic?

[claytonfaulkner]

is ball python size genetic? i mean if i breed a 5' male to a 6' female will the babys grow up to be big?

[LadyOhh]

There is a general possibility. I know in humans, and in most animals, the genetic predisposition for becoming large is thru evolution and genetic combination.

With that being said, it is an assumption to say yes, but I would hypothesize that it is true. ( With no data to back it up yet...I'm working on it )

[Brimstone111888]

It makes sense, but as Heather said without definite evidence its hard to say. I'm still interested in that subspecies of Ball pythons that is mamoth. Somewhere in African mountains.

[Tosha_Mc]

Yes - size is genetic - growth rate is genetic - food preferences are genetic - lots of things are genetic besides their pretty colors and patterns.

However - many of these things are dependent upon the environment as well. You might not get a 6 foot ball to grow 6 feet if you don't feed it what it needs to get there even if it's genetically inclined to grow that big.

[MasonC2K]

It certainly increases the odds a large offspring, but doesn't gaurantee it.

However, if large specimens were bred to each other (assuming no inbreeding) then eventually most or all the offspring would be large.

This comes from a study of fruitflies years ago where long lived flies were bred together over several generations (months for flies) and in the end you had fruitflies living 10 times longer than normal fruitflies.

[josh@outbackreps]

It makes sense, but as Heather said without definite evidence its hard to say. I'm still interested in that subspecies of Ball pythons that is mamoth. Somewhere in African mountains.

The "giant" balls, are called sub sahara's and are from the valtan region of Ghana, they do make genetically larger babies, kind of like certain localities of retics get larger than other localities.

We have eggs from one of our sub sahara females, and are going to keep track of weights and growth rates compared to normals, to see how fast they grow. We are going to breed them into morphs to increase the females size to get bigger clutches, and possibly try to improve certain animals such as pieds.

We will keep every one posted on how it turns out.

As for size on regular balls, I think it depends on the age of the snake, if its younger snakes with very fast growth then there is a strong chance of passing the trait on, whereas older snakes of unknown age might be large but also be 20+ years old, so there size would not be very noticeable on a genetics level.

(Just our thought on the subject, not sure if there has ever been any research done on it?)

[PythonWallace]

The "giant" balls, are called sub sahara's and are from the valtan region of Ghana, they do make genetically larger babies, kind of like certain localities of retics get larger than other localities.

We have eggs from one of our sub sahara females, and are going to keep track of weights and growth rates compared to normals, to see how fast they grow. We are going to breed them into morphs to increase the females size to get bigger clutches, and possibly try to improve certain animals such as pieds.

We will keep every one posted on how it turns out.

As for size on regular balls, I think it depends on the age of the snake, if its younger snakes with very fast growth then there is a strong chance of passing the trait on, whereas older snakes of unknown age might be large but also be 20+ years old, so there size would not be very noticeable on a genetics level.

(Just our thought on the subject, not sure if there has ever been any research done on it?)

That sounds like an interesting project. Keep us updated on this one.

[ru55ell14]

How would one identify a sub-saharan from a normal?

[josh@outbackreps]

How would one identify a sub-saharan from a normal?

They are not very common, they go for about $500 wholesale, from where they are so far out of the reg. collection range, and are not a common animal.

The best way to tell if you have one is to look at the head size, we posted pic in the giant ball python thread on here, with a comparison shot next to a temp gun.
We had 3 smaller sub sahara's that were only 3000-3500 grams and there heads were about 2x the size of a 3500 gram reg. female we had. It was like looking at a ball next to a burm, very noticeable. They are a very large snake, there was one in a picture from Africa that had 27 eggs, and weighed 9000 grams, that was from a VERY reliable source. A few breeders in the U.S have gotten 18-21 eggs clutches from them too. I believe OZ got 18 eggs.

If you have one you can usually tell pretty easily as they are very stand out with the monster heads they have. I picked mine out of 200 gravid imports, and knew what they were as soon as I saw them.

Good luck, if your still not sure get a head shot with something of reference and email it to us, and we will see if it is.

[Gloryhound]

While the attempt to make a larger size is an interesting science experiment I think the pet related industry would be more interested in a dwarf type ball python as a pet. While breeders would benifit the most from the larger clutches a lot of ball python pet owners would love to have a ball python that stayed between 2 and 2 1/2 feet as pets. This would allow for smaller enclosures and not having to make as many upgrades in size.