What Do You Make of These Ball Pythons??? - Morph???

[Alicia]

I am not sure if the spike in temperature would be able to cause the pattern of the animal to change. That would in effect be changing the DNA of the individual. That would be the same as saying someone who wanted their pastels to be brighter could simply incubate at 93 instead of 90. Isn't the pattern of the animal determined by their genetic make-up? I know that temperature during incubation in some reptiles can change gene interaction and influence male/female outcome(crocodillian), but can it really influence the specific patter?

You can change pattern without changing DNA.

Pigment begins in the neural crest and migrates down to form the pattern. All that has to happen for the color and pattern to change is for that migration to be interrupted.

I'm only on my second cup of coffee, so this is going to be a pretty butchered explanation, but I'd guess that the chemical processes and genetic switches that are supposed to happen in incubation depend a lot on temperature. As would speed of development . . . Just like temperature can speed up or slow down processes in adult snakes. Sometimes, temp spikes at the wrong time can cause wonky bone growth. It's causing the control switches in the fetus to mis-fire. It is the same with pigment. Heat is interrupting the normal development of the pattern just like it's interrupting the normal growth of the snake's lower jaw.

Hopefully, someone else can give a better explanation than I can right now.