25% Chance Het Pieds

Here are three 25% chance het piebald ball pythons that all have the marker white belly with dark black lines at the edge that is rumored to be a sporadic marker for het pied. The lines tend to be on the last half of the snake and the biggest one (2003) didn't line up right to show them. The mid sized one is an early 2004 male produced by Raul Gomez from a 50% chance het pied male with the mark and the other two are half sisters I produced from a male 50% chance het with the mark. I've seen this mark get passed to almost exactly half of the offspring of two male 50% chance het pieds with the mark.

There are numerous reports of 100% het pieds without this marker so at best it is sporadically seen in hets, perhaps tending to run in lines (all of these trace back to Kahl but some Kahl line hets don’t have it). In Burmese pythons the green and granite pattern mutations also seem to have sporadic het signs (cinnamon and puzzle respectively). There are also some reports of presumed non het pied ball pythons with this mark so I’m hoping to see some pics of those to compare to see if we are interpreting what it should look like the same. I have seen variations in quality of the mark in ones I consider to have it so it’s not a perfect system.

I do fully believe there should be some unexpected hets in the captive hatched imports and I’m working on proving a girl I picked up at a pet store with this mark (only two babies produced so far with a suspected het male so not enough to prove either way yet).