Genetic Morph: Yellow Belly, Het Ivory, Goblin
Status: Proven Co-Dominant
When: 2003
By Whom: The Snake Keeper

As of the end of 2004 several "Ivories" have been produced from breeding "Yellow Bellies" together...........so the "Super Yellow Belly" ( homo form ) is indeed the "Ivory Ball"............"Het Ivory" = "Yellow Belly".............BUT.........with out getting too long winded here............I would only trust the "genetics" from proven lines of Yellow Bellies aka "Het Ivories"...........the YB took the ball python world by storm in 2004......everybody and their brother thought they had one in their collection........the classifieds had imported YBs for sale every other day............2004 is definitely the year of the YELLOW BELLY!!

As of November 2004.........TSK, The Bells, Amir, Doug Beard and some others have all produced "Ivories" from breeding YBs together...........talk about letting the wind out of my sails too soon.........:(........this snake is too damn awesome to be co-dom!!!....grrrrrr

I myself have "Lilly"............she is a female "Ivory" that I imported from Africa as a baby in 2003..........to the tune of $70,000.00!!........then I find out that for the past three years I have been producing "Yellow Bellies" aka "Goblin Markers"........I knew they were "weird" and I would have eventually line bred them...........I guess I should have worked a little faster on that one huh?

Many other breeders have imported in Ivories as babies, yearlings and adults over the past four years...........I do not think to date that a "true lucy" has ever been imported..........

Get yourself a Yellow Belly and "Make a Wish"...............:)

Ivory x Normal = all Yellow Bellies aka "het ivories" ( same as homo x normal = all hets )

Ivory x YB = Ivories and YBs ( same as homo x het = homos and hets )

YB x YB = Ivories, YBs and normals ( same as het x het = homos, hets and normals, with a simple recessive trait the normals and the hets look alike, so they are called 66% poss hets..........with the co-dom trait.........there are no 66% poss hets because the "hets" ( YBs ) are visible - in 4 eggs - 1 Ivory ( homo ) , 2 YBs ( hets ) and 1 normal )

YB x Normal = 50% normal and 50% YB ( same as het x normal = hets and normals, with a simple recessive trait the normals and the hets look alike, so they are called 50% poss hets..........with the co-dom trait.........there are no 50% poss hets because the "hets" ( YBs ) are visible - in 4 eggs - 2 YBs ( hets ) and 2 normals )

It turns out that all the "odd babies" produced from the Goblin male since 2001 are actually "Yellow Bellies"...........I have been calling them " Goblin Markers". Yellow Bellies aka "het Ivories" are believed to be the heterozygous form of an Ivory ball aka "Lilly"............I don't know if my Goblin male is the beginning of a great Ivory project or not?...........but from the looks of things, he will be...................who knew?..............I knew the Goblin was special when I first imported him in as a baby. When I breed the Goblin male or any of his "Marker" sons to a normal female..........the clutch yields 50% "Markers" and 50% normals.

In 2005 I bred Goblin x Goblin Marker and produced a "Super Goblin" aka Ivory..........so if I would have just kept moving forward with the project instead of putting them all on the shelf, I would have been the first to produce a "white super"...........I'm calling all my "supers"..........."Super Goblins" out of respect to my poor old original Goblin male who had "the goods" the whole time............I just didn't think that the subtle markings on the "Goblin Markers" was anything "special"..........well it was!!.......and now all breeders and hobbyists are looking for those little subtle differences in hopes of stumbling onto something cool!!

The het Ivory aka Yellow Belly aka Goblin are all believed to be "gene enhancers".........let's start crossing them and find out what they can really do!!

Text by Ralph Davis