What is blushing?

[Adam Bittel]

I'm not sure if such a thread exists but could someone direct me to a place where I could definitions to characteristics of morphs like blushing, or flames, or alien heads. I know how to discern between morphs but lack the terminology to describe them in herpetologist lingo. Does this make sense to anyone? Please help.

[BHReptiles]

I found this morph guide helpful: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...-makes-a-morph

Also, Check out this one: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum...-Python-Morphs

[West Coast Jungle]

Here is a good example of blushing on a pastel, if you look at the dark areas along the ridge of her back you can see where its faded out and becomes yellow(instead of staying dark), that's blushing. When a female is gravid her blushing will usually get much lighter and brighter.


Flames are when the light color comes up the sides from the belly as if they where flames of fire coming up the sides. Here is a Butter ghost with lots of flames and blushing where they are connecting in places.

Here is a Mojave with flames up the sides.


Here is a good example of why they are called alien heads. If you look at the side pattern on your average ball python the light area will have two dark dots side by side (which varies a lot), some may have a dot(s) on bottom like a mouth but it resembles big black eyes you might see on an alien images, thus the term alien head. Here is a girl with your typical alien head pattern on sides.


These example should help you out.

[el8ch]

Blushing is the light or faded areas along the dorsal/spine of your snake. There can be many variations of blushing from just light fading to extreme difference in colour.

Here are a couple of pictures from Markus Jayne that show good examples of blushing.

[West Coast Jungle]

Blushing is also used to describe the faded head on pastels and other morphs like ghosts(see above ghost).
Here is the same pastel with lots of blushing on her back and head.



Super pastels have way more bushing on there heads where as babies it looks like you bleached it out.