Quote Originally Posted by paulh View Post
Are there any pictures of the first generation babies, aside from that dark Enchi Lesser son? What other males has she been bred to? Has she been bred to any of her sons? If so, what were the results?
Good luck.
To answer your questions, ever since we got her in 2013, she was only bred to 2 males. First one is a Lesser Enchi, she was bred to him only this first 1 season - picture below.



This first generation pairing produced 4 hatchlings.
First one is an Enchi Lesser boy (this one we kept and bred him back to his mother, so this is the second male mentioned above ).



Second hatchling was a normal.



Third and fourth were both Enchis.





Looking at these 4 babies, back then we didn't see anything special about them, we sold 3 long ago, and only kept that dark Enchi Lesser.

Ever since that first generation clutch, she has only been bred to her son, dark Enchi Lesser, no other males. Together, they produced 2 clutches.
First one had 2 hatchlings, the ones you see in group picture at start of this post.
Second clutch (this year's clutch) only produced 1 baby, a normal.



So here is my thinking. This original female was sold to us as a normal python that was a multiple-times proven breeder. This must mean that the babies she produced didn't look special or different. and so the breeder thought she was just a funny looking normal that was not genetic (I can't get in contact with the breeder, so this is something I can't check for a fact, but it would be the logical conclusion). The first clutch she had at my place also confirms this. 4 babies she produced don't seem different, other than, maybe, being a little darker. However when bred to her son, even though we unfortunatelly only got 2 eggs in that clutch (eggs weren't fertilized - I suspect the female is old and will soon not be able to produce anymore at all), we can definitely see some sort of an impact on the babies. This year's clutch only produced one normal baby, that looks "different" from a regular normal.
Based on what was written, my current (hypotetical) idea is, that this is a recessive mutation - 2 babies in group picture at start of this post both (or maybe only one) carry the mutation of the mother, one of them most likely in combination with Lesser from their father. Normal from this year's clutch is just a 100% het --> all of this still needs to be proven ofcourse.