08/30/08

by dave and tracy on 09/01/2008

Just as we were leaving for the expo in Daytona, we had a clutch of Blood python eggs hatch. It was one I was anticipating-just to get offspring from an unusual male. It was a snake I raised from a baby, and was unique in that it is almost melanistic and has ventrals that are just black and white. Additionally the pattern looked unique, but as it grew it became indistinct as the snake got blacker with age. I decided to breed this black snake to one of our yellow females with a black head, going in the direction of making a snake without red. I also really like the black headed blood pythons, and with both of these snakes having super black heads, thought I would get some interesting babies.

Red Blood Python Python brongersmai: A new dominant morph we have named the VPI Black Smoke Blood

Close-up of new dominant morph, the VPI Black Smoke Blood

It was a real surprise when the 11 eggs hatched and there were 6 babies like the dad-but not dark yet, but definately the same pattern, and 5 normal looking bloods. I really did not think that this snake would be a dominant, I just figured we would get some dark yellow bloods! I'm not sure what to think at this point, but I'm leaning that this could be anerythristic. There is a little red in the snakes, but some of the red in red bloods is melanin based. To really see what we might have, a cross with a red albino and a t- albino might be instructive! The cool part is that since it is at least dominant, we will have an easier time than working with a double homozygous recessive.

Newly hatched VPI Black Smoke Red Blood Python