Morphs In The Wild

[mattchibi]

Excuse me if this topic has been made already in the past, I was just wondering the other day after I read something online. Someone said that Pastels and Spiders were among some of the wild ball python morphs they pulled from Africa. Obviously, with more mixes of genetics aka designer morphs, its less likely to occur in the wild. But my question is: Does anyone have any idea why there are so many different morphs that occur in the wild? Why dont they all just look like normals?

At first, I always thought that, over time, these wild balls have just slowly been adapting to their environment, and thats why most of the morphs we see usually have light browns, yellows and blacks, because they help to serve as camouflage in their natural habitat. But Im not sure if this is the reason. Anyone care to indulge me

[dr del]

Hi,

Evolution and random genetic mutation.

Unless the change is bad for the animals ability to live and reproduce it stands a chance at being passed to the next generation.


dr del

[Slim]

Interesting question, Matt. With all of the base morphs having come from the wild, and proven genetic, I have to wonder if any really crazy color or pattern mophs have been captured and sold, but not proven to be genetic? Like a one of a kind that can't reproduce it's self but is sitting is some breeder's collection somewhere.

I remember a couple of years back seeing a picture of a wild caught BP male that had a normal type pattern, but was the color of a glass of Merlot wine. It was stunning, but I haven't seen anything like it since. I can only guess that it wasn't genetic.

[KingPythons]

Interesting question, Matt. With all of the base morphs having come from the wild, and proven genetic, I have to wonder if any really crazy color or pattern mophs have been captured and sold, but not proven to be genetic? Like a one of a kind that can't reproduce it's self but is sitting is some breeder's collection somewhere.

I remember a couple of years back seeing a picture of a wild caught BP male that had a normal type pattern, but was the color of a glass of Merlot wine. It was stunning, but I haven't seen anything like it since. I can only guess that it wasn't genetic.

There is a few breeders with some ball pythons that are the first of their kind on this planet. They might keep it on hush if they cant figured out the genes or if there trying to as we speak.

[gardenfiend138]

Dr. Del basically summed it up- inheritable genetic mutations are passed on until sufficient negative pressures eliminate them from the gene pool. Traits don't necessarily have to be beneficial to be passed on, just not hinder survival or reproduction (arguably the goal of life, if it were to have one).

[RobNJ]

I have to wonder if any really crazy color or pattern mophs have been captured and sold, but not proven to be genetic? Like a one of a kind that can't reproduce it's self but is sitting is some breeder's collection somewhere.

There are a few very unique balls that as of yet have not proven out...the Sunset ball is definitely the one that rings a bell loudly and clearly.

[OhhWatALoser]

There are a few very unique balls that as of yet have not proven out...the Sunset ball is definitely the one that rings a bell loudly and clearly.

and the viper ball and i thought the scaleless stuff also, or maybe it died too early to reproduce, i don't remember much of the story now.

[RandyRemington]

At one time they reported taking 150,000 ball python eggs from the wild a year. It does seem that balls have a little high mutation rate (maybe being nocturnal lets them get away with that). But out of that many year after year we could well be looking at well over 2 million wild bred eggs and you would probably find a lot of morphs in 2 million eggs from any snake species.

[paulh]

I've seen an estimate of approximately 1 albino animal in a thousand. This was not for ball pythons but a general estimate for most species.

With ball pythons being more or less nocturnal and spending a lot of time in animal burrows, it is not surprising that there is little selective pressure against things like spider or mojave.