Any ideas on this girl?

[beemaster]

I've had this girl for a while and I've always gotten lots of questions about her and lots of interest in her babies. I have a couple loose ideas, but nothing concrete. Hoping to get some opinions on her. Snapped a couple shots last night, but couldn't manage any decent belly shots as she was being fidgety. Have a couple of decent belly shots from a while back, though, and will include those.

Her head is extraordinarily light; I've had other normals with mild to moderate blushing on the head, but as you can see, it's considerably more than moderate on her. She also has much more blushing, especially laterally, than I've ever seen in a normal. This may be genetic, as many of her offspring have also displayed above average blushing and/or flaming.

Also noteworthy is the incomplete, but prominent vertebral striping; it's as though her dorsal pattern is trying, but failing, to form a full stripe. This does not appear to be genetic, as none of her offspring display a similar level of striping (a few have had moderate striping, but not quite that prominent). She also has a lot of granite speckling within her loops/"alien heads"; I've seen this in other normals, but I do want to point out that her offspring always have similarly prominent speckling, especially laterally near the venter.

One more curious fact I want to mention before I get on with the pics is that her offspring often come out with speckling in the labial scales (4 out of 6 last summer, for example); this often gives them the appearance of having a mustache, as is often seen in spiders and spider combos. Sometimes this also gives them the appearance of being spotnosed, but neither her nor the sire to those offspring display similar traits. I can include a couple pics of the "mustache" if this might help, or if anyone is curious. On to the pics.






Pics of her belly from forever ago (still looks the same)




Thanks for looking!

[Slim]

She certainly is a beautiful snake! I don't think I'm seeing anything other than a gorgeous Normal girl though.

[rlditmars]

Have you kept any of the male offspring that share the qualities you think stand out in her? If so about the only thing you can do to prove out if any is genetic is take one of her male offspring back to her and see what the results are.

[Albert Clark]

Were either of her parents yellow belly? If you know or not? That's what I was thinking. Especially with the flaming.

[piedlover79]

She's a beauty! I agree with Ridit, you need to keep a really nice male of hers and breed her to her son to see if you get a 'super' form. When I look at a normal paint I can't seem much other than a pretty normal...but the super paint rocks my world!

[beemaster]

Were either of her parents yellow belly? If you know or not? That's what I was thinking. Especially with the flaming.

No idea. She came in as a sub-adult from someone who did rescue work. I was much more interested in North American colubrids at the time, but I did already have one BP. This one wasn't eating, but was otherwise healthy.

[beemaster]

Have you kept any of the male offspring that share the qualities you think stand out in her? If so about the only thing you can do to prove out if any is genetic is take one of her male offspring back to her and see what the results are.

I'm thinking about holding back one of her males, but A. he doesn't flaming or blushing to the extent she does, B. he has a more normal looking venter than she does (it's very busy, but not in a way I haven't seen in normals). He does, however, have that "mustache" I mentioned in my OP. He also has some interesting peach/yellow speckling WITHIN the blushing along both sides of the neck, which I don't think I've ever seen before on a normal. He also displays the prominent granite-like speckling, especially laterally. I'll post a couple pics of him in case anyone is curious.

First two pics give you a good idea of the dorsolateral pattern and coloration, plus the yellow/peach speckling within the blush on each side of his neck-





Next two pics give a better view of his venter as well as lateral pattern and coloration-

[beemaster]

You can kind of see his "mustache" in the last picture, but since it's from a funny angle, I'm gonna share something from one of his siblings to give everyone a better idea about what I'm refering to. Thanks to everyone who has looked and commented thus far.

[Kibbleswhites]

The baby looks totally different from the dam. Did her head always look that light or has it gotten lighter with time? My females heads get lighter when in breed mode, glow.

[beemaster]

Yeah, he looks nothing like her and I wouldn't consider him a good candidate to prove anything out. Still gonna hang onto him to see if that mustache is genetic, though. Too weird that 4 out of 6 hatched out that way.

As for the dam, her head/neck have had that blushing for as long as I've had her, but it seems to have gotten a little bit lighter over the years. I didn't get her until she was already a subadult, so I have no idea what she looked like as a youngster.