ABOUT GENETICS AND MORPHS

A hatchling Ball Python receives certain genes from its father and certain genes from its mother. Depending on what these genes are will determine how the hatchling looks, essentially what "type" of Ball Python it will be. We refer to these "types" as morphs.

The genes that create these morphs can be divided into 3 categories or combinations thereof namely:

1. Dominant gene morph
2. Co-dominant gene morph
3. Recessive gene morph

Recessive gene morphs can again be divided into two categories namely:

1. Visual recessive (visual product of combining two recessive genes).
2. het.erozygous (visually looks like normal/wild morph but carries recessive gene).

Normal is also a morph. This is how most Ball Pythons would look in the wild. There will obviously be varied patterning, varying degrees of black, brown and gold colouration, but overall they generally all look the same.

1. Dominant gene morph.
A dominant gene morph when mated to a normal will produce roughly 50% normal and 50% whatever that dominant gene morph is.

2. Co-dominant gene morph
A co-dominant gene morph when mated to a normal will produce roughly 50% normal and 50% whatever that dominant gene morph is BUT when mated together, two of the SAME co-dominant gene morphs will produce a SUPER form of the gene morph. These super gene morphs are sometimes given a name.

3. Recessive gene morph
A recessive gene morph is a morph that when mated to a normal will produce 100% normal looking Ball Pythons BUT they will all carry whatever that recessive gene morph is. When a Ball Python carries a particular gene but is visually normal, it is referred to as being het.erozygous or het.. for whatever gene it carries.

When two het.erozygous Ball Pythons carrying the SAME gene are paired up, they will produce 25% of the visual product of the combination of the recessive gene, 25% will be normal and 50% will be normal het.erozygous for that recessive gene.

Through selective breeding you can produce morphs that are combinations of dominant, co-dominant and recessive gene morphs!