Quote Originally Posted by Raven01 View Post
If I recall a BP.net member was working on a line of green snakes and they too would just not show the green in photo's.
Hopefully, he or she sees this thread and can share info that may be relevant.
i even remember the name of the thread

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...een-Labby-Ball!!!

Yes; i personally think its more of a psychological thing, color perception. That doesnt mean its not real. As pigments, being less conservative, i think we have at most 4 pigments in BPs: white, yellow, brown, and black. Maybe brown is just a mix of yellow and black, then, looking at some high-contrast albinos, maybe we do have a true brown pigment. Transparency, when all pigments are low, can lead to pink/purple/lavender hues.

But when you show people these oranges and whites and browns and blacks and greys all day, their expectations adapt, and in that mindset you can get something where the people consistently see green while it is part of the regular color spectrum. Just the right intensity of brown with comparatively unsually low yellow-content, and people see green because their mind exaggerates the absence of yellow. Thats just my opinion, my personal explanation for it. In a way it is real, because depending on peoples expectations of ball python color, you do need a very special color tone for the effect to be consistently experienced by people looking at the snake. I suspect absence of yellow and presence of the right brown are key.


And while i think i have a rational explanation for it, i to a degree see it in pictures, while not believing in a green pigment at work. For me its just a specific kind of brown that does it and when i look at different actual greens the effect gets weaker; its still something unusual.