Whoa! I've got to get me a Yellow-Belly!

[Adam_Wysocki]

That was a little harsh don’t you think?

No, actually I don't ... If you took it as "harsh", you are mistaken.

-adam

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

I've found the key to online communication and reading posts, etc, is to assume every comment and post is meant in a friendly, helpful, informative manner. Even if someone says something somewhat negative, you can take it as a friendly critique...

It is hard to do, but without voice inflection a lot of posts end up being open to translation.

Ive learned the hard way when over-reacting to a post and telling the poster what they were saying, when in fact they meant it in a different way but didnt manage to convey it in the proper wording to make it obvious.

This is just general commentary, not directed at any previous posts, just at the apparent miscommunication people sometimes have

[RandyRemington]

I'm just not a big fan of the "least likely theory" approach ... I would much rather focus the limited resources we have on pursuing the "most likely theory" until every possibility of that theory is exhausted and then move on to the next "most likely theory" ... seems a lot smarter to me than spinning wheels over things that in many cases can't even be proven if they are true ... I was always taught that good science is using the process of attempting to eliminate likely possibilities in pursuit of the truth ... but hey, that's just me.

As with the possibility that albino and caramel might be alleles we disagree on the relative improbability. Mendel’s point is good that there should be much more opportunity for chimerism in a species where one offspring at a time isn’t the norm. And I would agree that it is likely under documented in humans and pretty much hopeless to see in the vast majority of non morph ch ball pythons. If it is happening in ball pythons the place it would be seen would be in morphs from mixed clutches and as those become more common even a low rate of chimerism could be responsible for the handful of paradox animals seen so far.

Given that probabilities are difficult to agree on or even calculate I like the approach of considering all the possibilities I can come up with in parallel and then using the available information to eliminate as many as possible. That’s why I’m asking for instances of paradox being produced by homozygous mutant parents as that would tend to rule out chimerism.

Yes I realize that the possibility of half an apparent caramel’s offspring only being het albino or of a chimera morph’s offspring being completely normal have economic and marketing impacts. However I think it’s best to get to the answers as quick as possible even if it has more impact on sellers now it will have less impact on buyers later.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Mendel’s point is good that there should be much more opportunity for chimerism in a species where one offspring at a time isn’t the norm.

But there are many many more species beyond just ball pythons that have more than one offspring at a time, have multiple different mutations including leucism, and have been breed for many more years and in FAR greater numbers than ball pythons ... without any documented instances of chimerism. I don't feel that the "has more than one offspring" argument gives ball pythons any greater weight than any other species when is comes to the possibility of chimerism. If that argument held water, we would have surely seen it happen in corn snakes.

However I think it’s best to get to the answers as quick as possible even if it has more impact on sellers now it will have less impact on buyers later.

I agree, and that's what people that are actually working with these animals are doing. I think it’s one thing to sit around and speculate, it’s another to actually invest in the animals and do the breedings that it takes to find the answers. It's a shame that there are not enough of these animals out there to pursue every single theory at the same time, but we'll get there.

-adam