Agreed in some respects. All "Harlequins" do not look alike. True, there are some questionable appearing animals out there; they may or may not be Harlequins. I'm not saying that all of them are not; they would have to be bred to prove it.

As I understand it, Harlequins have less yellow than a normal (What is normal anymore???) and are at least partially striped. Within these sections of striping there are off centered sections with dark spots. Some call them keyholes, think of an old skeleton key lying on the spine of the snake.

Some Harlequins have shown to be genetically reproducible, in that Harlequin bred to normal equals approximately half normal and half Harlequin. Others have speculated that Harlequin = Phantom. THIS NEEDS TO BE PROVEN. It takes time to line breed any Ball Python, hopefully someone is working towards that now to see if Harlequin + Harlequin = Super Phantom. Again this HAS NOT been proven and is a guess at this point.

Still others have said that Harlequins are a more brown version of a Mojave, again speculation only.



Somebody prove something already!



Thanks!


Chad Schwinn
www.ChadSchwinnReptiles.com