Well, this is why I was hesitant for a long time to take a chance on a fire. I knew I'd either pay out the ass for a proven female or gamble on my best judgement since fires can resemble normals, especially in pictures. I had considered just taking what I get from next year's babies and just buying a super fire and being done with it. But it would be so much more exciting to produce one of my own.

As for Fiona, I don't know if it helps but her belly is patternless, solid white/cream color, and her side bands fade out as they get closer to her belly just like my fire spider. I also read today that fires have the side stripes bordering the belly toward the rear similar to a het pied, and she does have a little of that. I actually noticed that Saturday night and remember thinking it would be crazy if she was het pied too, so it kind of stuck out to me when I read that. Biggest knocks on her that I will concede is that she is missing the fiery head stamp, which I see on a lot of fire pictures (but I've seen pictures of fires without it too), and I also don't think her color contrast is quite as sharp as most of the fires I've seen pics of.

I suppose all I can do is just hope she proves out. Thanks to that lesser being thrown in the deal I'll hardly be losing much if she doesn't. She looks a bit short on meals so I don't know if I'll go with her this spring, but eventually I'm gonna throw my fire spider male to her. All I really need out of her is a super, so if she's just low quality then my male is not, so he should cover the slack there.

All I know is that if she is a normal she is by far the brightest one I have ever seen.