I have only gotten into Ball Pythons in the last year and I only have one "Normal" female. She is about a year old now and eventually I would like to breed her. Unfortunately, I did not buy her from a breeder, so I have no idea what her alleles might be. I won't know until I breed her. If I breed her to a homozygous normal male and none of the babies have any recessive traits, then I know that she too is homozygous normal. If she is heterozygous though, then I could get 50% heterzygous offspring. If she is heterozygous and I breed her to a heterozygous male, then I could get a recessive expression. The same would happen if she is heterozygous and I breed her to an albino, pied, or some other recessive trait male. If she is not heterozygous though and I breed her with a recessive trait male, then all of the babies will he heterozygous normal. That is a much simplified genetics discussion because color is often controlled by a third allele and the crosses become much more complex.

The human genome has been mapped completely, but I don't know what the state of the science is for other species. It is all very fascinating. I hope to one day be a very good breeder, but it all costs a lot of money.