Quote Originally Posted by RandyRemington View Post
Another wild theory I just came up with is parthenogenesis. Did a lot (like 25) of the male possible homozygous spiders throw very high spider ratios but eventually had just one or two normals disqualify them from the hunt for a proven homozygous? I've long wondered if female ball pythons might regularly produce parthenogenic babies. For this to be happening and disqualifying actual homozygous spiders (because they aren't the father of all the babies) it should be noticed first in known homozygous animals like leucistics and super pastels. Do these regularly produce a few normals and no one talks about it because it's so messy for the market? Problem with this theory is that it doesn’t explain how the expected roughly 25 homozygous spider females failed to prove (unless babies sometimes only get genetic material from dad by the same mechanism I'm proposing they sometimes only get from mom).
I have never heard of cases of parthenogenesis occuring in balls, or any snakes for that matter, and there is definitely no way that babies could get genetic material from dad only.