I have been doing some 'light' reading on the known instances of parthenogenesis in snakes, mainly pythons and though a lot of the information goes over my head, it got me to thinking on the various morphs. If I am remembering correctly morphs like mota, leopard, and acid all were isolated from wild caught "normal" snakes that looked different - and it turns out the traits are genetic and hence became morphs.
It made me wonder if some wild populations that exhibited atypical patterns maybe did so because at one point some females with the atypical genes created a line through parthenogenesis...then generational interbred and created a variant within that local population. I know that many variants to color in other species are due to environmental pressures or genetic isolation, but it seemed like an interesting theory. Also interesting that the ball python created unique young while the burms made clones.
Anyway - thought it was interesting, just got my mind wondering what environmental pressures gifted us with all the dominant basic morphs
Here is a link to one paper that mentioned ball pythons specifically. http://www.snakegenomics.org/CastoeL...JLS%202014.pdf
No cage is too large - nature is the best template - a snoot can't be booped too much
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