Quote Originally Posted by Watever View Post
If it wasn't genetic, or it was a chimera (sounds like a mediaval dragon name lol), how would you explain that we see more of them in the YB, Ivories and SuperStripe morphs ?

I think there is something genetic there, not something that can be explained by only 1 gene. I really think there is more and more gene in it. For this, you would need to breed some paradox to paradox and see if more paradox comes in. The problem is that the ball python don't produce that many eggs, making hard to make stats if there is 3 or 4 recessive gene that comes to play here.
If it's not chimerism or passable genetics, it would probably be that the genes that block the production of the darker pigments have suddenly malfunctioned and that these gene are more prone to that specific type of mutation due to some combination of environmental and genetic factors.

The only way to figure it out is to breed'em I guess.

The thing with the paradoxes occurring spontaneously from normal to heterozygous isn't that strange to me... of course, it could be possible that the normal was actually het, but it is also possible that the egg/sperm itself that was first produced via meiotic division in the mother/father had a spontaneous mutation when it was being formed--remember, all inheritable morphs (other than the wild type) and genes were once mutations as well--the only difference is that they can be passed down to next generations.

One's an inheritable trait mutation, the other isn't.

So I can actually understand that occurring.