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[digizure]

I'm still learning about BPs everyday and I have a question about ball python "lines." For example, Flora/Fauna line, NERD line, Amir line, etc.

What does it mean? And how do you come up with your own line?

Just wondering. Thanks.

[youbeyouibei]

Those individuals proved those morphs or lines out as being genetic or the first captive example of the morph and in turn get to name it whatever they want. Kind of like producing a world's first morph from dinker animals or proven base morphs that combine into a 5, 6, * gene monster: you could name it PAM Cooking Spray if you wanted to and had the copyright privileges from PAM, lol!

As to coming up with your own line: dinkers, imports from Africa, "different" looking "normals", etc. and then a LOT of time, energy and money into proving the animals and their traits out as genetic. Or you might hit the one in a million odds and luck out with a pair that proves out as something entirely new on your first try.

[digizure]

Ok and how is it possible if there are three different lines within the same morph? For example, I think there are three lines for Calico.

[loonunit]

Often it means that breeder imported a captive-hatched or wild-caught morph (or bought an unproven CH or WC morph from an importer), and then bred it out to prove it was genetic. That original animal isn't directly related to other known specimens of that morph, so it's a "new bloodline".

In the case of recessive traits, sometimes an animal just pops out of a random breeding by chance. The breeder might have had some idea that "something was going on" when they chose the pairing.... but the animals in question weren't sold as hets. Again, because it's an unrelated bloodline, it'll get called, say, a "Kobylka-line" pied. Which distinguishes it from the zillions of "Kahl-line" pieds out there, which can all trace their ancestry to a handful of breedings by Pete Kahl back in 1997. And a CH pied imported from Africa would be another completely different bloodline.

All visual pied bloodlines are assumed to be genetically compatible, and likely have a single pied ancestor way back when. But if you have, say, a newline axanthic or ghost, you'll have to test it for compatibility against the existing bloodlines. Because they aren't all mutually compatible.

...and then sometimes the animals have the usual bloodlines, but are just particularly pretty examples. Like if somebody says "Excalibur-line lavender albino", they're referring to descendants of a particularly colorful male that sired a whole lot of similarly-colorful offspring.

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With calicos, yeah, I think they're either proven or assumed equivalent/compatible. But people just "like" one bloodline or another. Some of them are supposed to be higher white, or produce more colorful pastel calicos... it's like preferring butters to lessers, or phantoms to mystics, except minus the endless arguments about whether or not they are in fact the same gene.

(Flora and Fauna all the way! BOOM.) (But Liesen line black pastels really are da Bomb. No offense to my very pretty Ian G.'s... but if I could do it over, I'd go Liesen line.)