Scaleless bp

[Pythonfriend]

I worry about the health of these snakes. I worry they will be more susceptible to burns, that they will have shedding issues, and possibly respiratory issues. I wonder how much damage things like mites will do to them vs regular snakes, and if they will experience skin irritation from substrates like aspen. They might also have issues thermoregulating, depending on how much having scales enables them to retain heat/cold.

At the very least I think they will help us learn more about how regular ball pythons utilize their scales.

im sorry i dont see most of the issues.

the skin will be a bit more vulnerable, but scaled BPs have exactly the same vulnerable skin between all their scales. i dont think bedding can hurt their skin.

maybe they will be a bit more susceptible to burns, maybe not.

if they are like scaleless corns or scaleless texas rats, there wont be shedding issues, they just shed in one piece in the normal cycle. i dont see how RI is related.

mites like to suck between the scales and to hide under the scales. on a scaleless they can suck everywhere but cannot hide under the scales.

thermoregulating.... remotely possible, but i doubt it. in scaled BPs there is blood circulation in the scales and they are covered with skin, so i see not much of a heat insulating purpose.

ball pythons utilize their scales for movement, for that the belly scales are most important. But then, these scaleless BPs retain their belly scales, so for climbing and crawling i dont see much of a difference. crawling through a small crevace may be harder for a scaleless. i think if the belly scales would be gone, then a scaleless BP would have a problem, that would be an issue for the morph, a big one.

fortunately i first heared that brian disclosed in a comment somewhere that the heat pits and belly scales are fine, and later i heared that Mike Wilbanks made a purchase, which kinda confirms it to me. i am also thrilled to hear that the heat pits are fine; this means the deme ball was a singularity, in the deme the heat pits were not functional and belly scales also impaired and it had some random scales scattered over the body.


i think Brian got really, really lucky and uncovered a variety of scaleless similar to scaleless texas rats and scaleless corns. these require no special husbandry and their body shows no loss in function and they retain their belly scales and some scales on the head. its no freak like the deme ball, and yes i say it and mean it: this was a freak, and if BHB scaleless would be like that, the morph would have no chance.

heat pits are important, eye caps are important, belly scales are important, the scales around the cloaca are important. i have good hopes that this morph only takes away the least important scales, the small ones covering the sides and top of the body.

of course we need to wait for more pictures and the first shed, but i am hopeful.

And when people talk down Brian, i sometimes think its jealousy speaking. he is not a greedy guy. Yes he has a reputation of always having the money to be the first to buy into any new project, and in many cases he is the first to buy. And yes his company is very big and he is CEO. But i do not think that he is a greedy guy and that its about the money for him. Money, for him, is a tool that allows him to do what he wants to do. He has a collection of somewhere between 10000 and 20000 animals, which requires employees to be maintained. some guesstimates, i think setting up a facility like his takes maybe half a million dollars (guessing, i may be too low or too high). running costs, including employees, food, electricity, maintenance, maybe between 50k and 150k per month. But i think he is just living his hobby large and living his dream. I really think first and second are, in no particular order, his obsession with reptiles and his ambition to advance and transform the hobby and the reptile business. Money comes in third, its the enabler. Money is what keeps it all alive, quite literally. I heared him explain how deeply he cares about wild animals and wild reptiles, and that he wants to undermine the market for wild-caught reptiles by breeding reptiles in quality and quantity. An albino or pied BP, or a scaleless BP for that matter, wont put pressure on the wild population because you simply do not find them in nature. Also look at the diversity of species he works with, if it would be all about the money he would cut it down to the ones that turn a profit. I think he really cares and that money is just a tool for him, but his plan is much larger than that and not just to make money.