What causes the black paradox markings?

[Daigga]

Paradox is just another name for Chimerism. They were twins that never split but we're different morphs so you can see the patterns of both. The "black markings" you see on lighter colored morphs is the normal or darker morph coming through. Chimerism pops up in other animals as well and is a pretty cool genetic anomaly.

False. True chimerism is incredibly rare, and there is absolutely zero proof of paradox animals being chimeras. Besides that, this would indicate that every single paradox ball python started out as a twin embryo, and twins in ball pythons (particularly fraternal twins) are rare to start with. There is no chimera anything happening in this animal, nor most other paradoxes I have owned or seen.

Away from rant now. I own two paradox ball pythons right now and love the anomaly. My cinnapin is pretty simple and only has a ringer on his tail, so it isn't so fancy as the black paradoxing that your pastel enchi or my calico pastel has. It's very unfortunate that we don't know much about what causes paradoxes, since they're way cool.

My calico pastel for comparison;