New Arrivals Question for a Simpleton

[PugLife82]

Hi everyone. New to this forum and so grateful to find it.

We have just picked up two adorable 1 year old, Iris and Albert. We're new to pythons as we just have a 4 year old Amel corn. Although our Dave is a great chap, we wanted to try something a bit chunkier and after a month's of research on care settled for balls.

We got them from someone who had them advertised for rehoming. He had bred them himself and was keeping them to breed from but after having a new baby he decided to sell off his snake and reps collection due to not having space or time anymore. They have been kept in rubs and are right now. We got them yesterday and we have 2 5ft vivs being delivered later today. Both snakes are very inquisitive and fairly active and we are very much enjoying them so far.

My question is on the science-y bit. Having an Amel corn only, we've never looked into genetics properly and, as we just want pets and not breeders, it's not something we've been interested in - for us it's more about if the snake looks nice and if we can care for it properly.

These snakes were sold as:
"Banana Pastel Pied" (male)
"Black Pastel Leopard Butter Het Pied" (female)
No percentages. I don't understand any of this, despite reading explanation posts! Genetics is not my strong point! How do I tell what exactly the parents were so I can look up pictures?

The guy said he was originally keeping them to breed as he said he would have produced some "amazing" morphs. I'm curious as to what these snakes could produce if paired. Because I don't understand genetics and it's not something I need to get in to, other than for the purpose of knowing my own snakes, please talk to me like I'm a 5 year old child and not a 41 year old!

To clarify, we have no intention of breeding these snakes. They are our pets and family members only. We would never consider breeding, even if these weren't our first pythons, as we don't know enough (anything!) about genetics, balls appear to be ten a penny, we couldn't guarantee sales and don't have the space for hatchlings. We're just nosey as the guy made such a big deal about having to rehome them and would like to see some pictures of their possible morphs just out of curiosity.

Sorry for the long first post and apologies for being such a new newbie I can't even get to grips with basic genetics but with just keeping a simple Amel corn we've never really had to be curious before!

Thanks so much in advance.

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[Lord Sorril]

Greetings! Welcome to the world of ball pythons!

The genetics on ball python morphs is relatively easy compared to other species. You have primarily dominant and recessive traits. Banana is sex-linked-so that is a bit of a different story.

On the DNA strand: Most genes are paired and thus there are two copies. One copy is inherited from the mother, and one copy from the father to make the pair.
Heterozygous means one copy of a gene, and Homozygous means two. In Ball Python Lingo we only refers to Hets in terms of Recessive Traits that are not visible-everything else that is shown is given a name. We never use the term 'Homozygous' either...instead for certain morphs that are enhanced with two copies-we refer to them as 'Super' (e.g. Super Pastel, Super Fire, Super Enchi)-which usually produces a different visual effect (but, not always).

-Dominant traits and variations (e.g. co-dominant and incomplete dominant) only need one copy of a specific gene to create a visual 'morph'.
-Recessive traits need two copies of a gene.

For a Banana/Pastel/Piebald:
Banana = One Copy
Pastel = One Copy
Piebald (recessive) = Two copies (You can see it expressed)

For a Banana/Pastel/Het Piebald:
Banana = One Copy
Pastel = One Copy
Piebald = One Copy (Not visible)

For a Banana/Pastel/66% Het Piebald
Banana = One Copy
Pastel = One Copy
Piebald = 66% Possible Chance one gene is present. Which means there is a 33% chance that the gene is not in the animal.
The percentage is based on a Punnett Square genetic prediction model.

For a Banana/Super Pastel/50% Het Piebald
Banana = One Copy
Pastel = Two Copies
Piebald = 50% Chance one gene is present

We use percentages on Hets as a guessing game to determine the statistical likelihood that genes are present on recessive traits. If you are 100% certain that one gene of a recessive trait is present-then no percentages are needed, just call it a Het.

-Sex-Linked traits are controlled by genes on the chromosomes which also code for gender. These can result in offspring only of one gender carrying the gene, but, there is also a small possibility of genetic crossover...so a male specimen carrying a sex-linked trait will eventually a produce a female with this trait in low numbers. Likewise a female carrying this trait will eventually produce a male after producing many females. Bananas are often referred to by breeders as Male-Makers or Female-Makers for this reason. Crossover odds are low-so definitely don't plan on your Male-Maker producing a female carrying the banana gene.

There are some genes that can have multiple variations and can produce different results. These are known as 'alleles'.
Genes are sections of DNA, and Alleles are different versions of the same gene.
Blue-Eyed Leucistics are a good example of a morph with allelic versions: You can use different combinations of genes to produce them.

You can use an online morph calculator like this one to determine possible outcomes if you breed your snakes:
https://www.morphmarket.com/c/reptil...%2CHet+Piebald

Anyhow, this has been your super basic crash course in ball python genetics...I didn't give you a lot of specifics and I oversimplified some stuff, but, there is enough here for you to get the idea.