Quote Originally Posted by RandyRemington View Post
It's certainly possible for a homozygous co-dominant to come from the wild. RDR's Platy is close. I believe it's a combo of two different mutations of the same gene. Not exactly the same as an imported ivory or super pastel but close.

The thing is that you would expect the heterozygous versions of your co-dominant mutation to be much more common and likely get imported and named first. But if the heterozygous co-dominants are subtle and/or maybe they come from a place where they don't commonly export (and only your two homozygous males where extreme enough to make it out) I could see it happening.

For whatever reason we never heard of what ended up named lesser (the heterozygous with normal co-dom) before platy. I think there where some just plain lessers imported later but the first to get named was what should have been much more rare; the more striking platy combo ahead of what should have been the more common lesser. Also, there was a rumor of a white wild caught ball python passing through the US on its way to Asia before any cb leucistic or their hets. Not sure how verifiable that is but it was supposedly a young male. I always wondered what it was (ivory?) if real and if it got “accidently” housed with any females before shipping out.

I guess the proof is in the breeding. If you have produced enough babies with normals and they all have the same distinctive look I would think you are onto something and may well have wild bred homozygous co-doms. Hope you are close to reproducing the homozygous version like dad as that would really remove any doubt.
Fairly close I think Randy? I produced 3 large clutches from my WC(bush baby) male x normal females in 08. They yielded 13.12 offspring that ALL have the same suble appearance at first glance AND multiple distinct markers upon closer inspection as well -- ALL 25!!

I held back the 12 girls and a boy as insurance. The oldest 4 females of the 12 will be 2 years in April and at least 3 will be up to size. I will begin pairing them in March I suspect. Time will tell.

Worst case -- I will have a dozen REAL pretty normals.