Trip to MN to see Bruce Delles!

[JD Constriction]

Tom, here is a copy of what bruce said over at the BLBC, hope it helps.

" Here is the conclusion that some of us that that have produced babies from a mojo crystal have come up with. In order to get what was being called a crystal, it is actually a combo of special/crystal & a mojo. People were calling it a crystal when it is actually a mojo crystal. Tom has bred a special/crystal to a special/crystal and produced a snake that was not a leucistic/white snake but did not have the pattern/color of the mojo crystal.
Two of us that have produced babies using a mojo crystal to various morphs have produced babies that either showed the mojo or the special/crystal trait in all of the young. So rather than calling the base morph one thing and the super another it just seems less complicated to call one the base name (special:AKA crystal and the other the super crystal. And when crossed into other morphs (mojo, etc) the other morph name & crystal. Lesser crystal, mojo crystal, pastel crystal, etc. This is just the opinion of myself and a few other people. I will state here and now that I mean NO DISRESPECT to Tom Baker who originally produced and named this morph. It just seems to be an easier thing to do. With all of the various combo's getting various "catchy" names that has noting to do with the morps involved is just going to create more confusion to all the newbies and people that are already into ball pythons trying to understand what's what. I do agree that the name crystal instead of special does not visually fit the morph but there are a lot of snakes that have names that have nothing to do with the visual or genetics of it. This is not a rant, just an opinion. For those that like the animals, thanks. And thank you John for posting them."

I produced a Crystal by breeding a "Special" (normalish) to a Mojave... The following year I produced a 2.2 Crystals (one being paradoxed) and 1.1 Pastel Crystals... I did not produce anything Crystal related in 2007 and only produced 1.0 Super Crystal and 1.0 Pastel Super Crystal in 2008.... Now to myself, TSK, BHB, and others that have seen them it appears to have Mojave in them... But since then breeding has proven that you cannot produce a Crystal by breeding Crystal to normal. "Specials" and Mojaves appear to be on the same allele which makes it more of a Super. It is possible that a Super Crystal is a Super Special and breeding will possibly prove that out...

But as far as the naming goes... I think someone has gotte quite full of themselves. Bruce Delles is obviously quite a funny guy???? He has not produced a Crystal or Lesser Crystal and hes taken it on himslef to rename the project? I guess I need to check with him and relabel all of these names to meet his needs!
When Barcyk produced his Crystal he got in touch with me and asked if I minded him calling his a Lesser Crystal. He knew that I originated this project and gave me that respect which shows a level of class that I guess some of us dont have.