For what it's worth I do not believe the female posted on eggs by Family Reptiles is a Desert either.Originally Posted by Mike41793
The colour and cleanliness of the pattern isn't bright or clean enough, there are too many alien heads, there is no white rising up from the belly to meet the pattern and the eye stripes should be wider. I know that she has just laid, is unlikely to have eaten for months and will not be looking at her best but I still see no sign of Desert in that animal at all.
This is a perfect example showing all the points I mention on an adult female Desert at 1900g. I hope everyone, even those with no experience whatsoever, can see the difference.
The Citrus Pastel shown by the original poster on eggs looks very, very much like a Citrus Desert and I could completely understand anybody making the mistake of selling it as such but as above I do not believe that it carries the Desert gene. The deciding factor being the faint speckling of darker pattern along the back of the animal as a hatchling, which Desert completely wipes out leaving them perfectly clean until they start putting on some size. A great post has already been made in this thread pointing out the key differences and 'markers' for it not carrying the Desert gene and I have nothing more to add to that. It is undoubtedly a beautiful animal and one of the most exceptional Pastels of any line that I have seen but that's what Citrus Pastels are famous for, being at the top end of the spectrum.
Obviously the day will come when these eggs hatch, ( there's no reason why they shouldn't) and there may be little baby Deserts in either clutch proving me wrong and that's absolutely fine. I will stand corrected and gladly admit it. But today with the information provided thus far, it is my belief that a Desert female is yet to lay a fertile clutch of eggs. Which is a huge shame as it's incredibly beautiful morph both on its own and in many, many combos.
