champagne ball python

[Russ Lawson]

OOOOH a super Champagne would have lots of bubbles. I could only imagine what it might look like? Maybe it would have a pattern?

That's the thing, nobody really knows. Judging by how drastically different the heterozygous phenotype is from the wild-type though, I'm guessing it will probably turn out to be a dominant mutation. I would love to be proven wrong though.

[RandyRemington]

Does anyone here know the history of the champagne mutation? I've heard they are called puma in Europe (we have a different puma in US that seems to be between superstripe and ivory). Does that mean they where first captive bred in Europe? How old are the oldest females?

I've thought a good book for someone well connected to write would be with pictures and history of all the morph founders while most are probably still alive. Someday I’ll have one and be nice to see pictures of his progenitor.

[Russ Lawson]

Does anyone here know the history of the champagne mutation? I've heard they are called puma in Europe (we have a different puma in US that seems to be between superstripe and ivory). Does that mean they where first captive bred in Europe? How old are the oldest females?

I've thought a good book for someone well connected to write would be with pictures and history of all the morph founders while most are probably still alive. Someday I’ll have one and be nice to see pictures of his progenitor.

It looks like EB Noah in Africa has credit for "introducing" the animal. I think what may have happened is that a clutch with champagnes in it hatched in Ghana and at the time they were likely an unnamed new mutation. Different offspring were then most likely sold to breeders in America where they were named Champagne, and in Europe where they were named Puma. That is the best explanation I can come up with given the information I was able to find on the origins of the mutation.

Randy, do you have a link to a picture of the American Puma you described?

[RandyRemington]

This page has a picture of a "Citrus Puma" from the originator, Amir. I'm still not clear on if they have a type of pastel in the morph or not.

http://www.reptileradio.net/reptiler...ad.php?t=11070

A breeder near me, Marshall Van Thorre, produced what appears to be one last summer using a "yellowbelly" gene from Amir but I can't seem to find a posted picture. I'm thinking it may be that the American puma is created by combining yellow belly and a yellow belly like allele. My understanding is that the superstripes where created in an attempt to produce ivory before spector/whirlwind where recognized as being somewhat different than yellow belly so this may be another combo of yellow belly and one of it's alleles that can easily be confused with yellow belly. I believe Ivory are also striped they just are so white you don't see much pattern so the puma might be between superstripe and ivory in color.

Ironic that the American puma looks somewhat like the European puma (aka champagne) when they don’t appear to have any genetics in common.