I believe that temperament is not so much inherited as learnt.....

I think that all snakes inherit, and are born with, basic 'survival' instincts...i.e.hissing.... puffing up...hood spreading....spitting etc (species dependant of course)....

Many people observe these actions and may interpret them as a snake's 'temperament'....

Luckily, balls do not really retain their instinctual actions if they are handled regularly, they become accustomed to their handlers and hence become quite docile.

How many of you have ball pythons that still 'ball up' ??.... I have 13 balls and none of them do this anymore..... they have learnt that balling does them no good so they don't bother.

I have a Het-Ghost male that is very aggressive and I handle him the least out of all my balls, and guess what?... He has retained his more aggressive behaviour because it gives him peace and quiet....

I've got a young female Butter that was a happy snappy when I first got her, but with regular handling her 'temperament' has gone from b!tch... to babe....

So my summation of this thread is that there is no real temperament inherited in a specific morph, I believe it the owners interaction with each ball that results in it having certain behavioural traits....

I DO believe that some morphs inherit certain instinctual 'traits' more than others.... example are Spiders and Axanthics.... I have experienced a much stronger feeding response with these 2 morphs than in any other of my collection...

Other owners of these morphs here in South Africa have also experienced this behaviour from these morphs....

Interesting topic.....