Pythons - The not-so-morphs

Your Reptile and Amphibian Resource and Information Site

Back to Pythons Forum Forums Home Members Area

Pythons Forum

JimmyDavid Sra JimmyDavid Sra JimmyDavid

Member

Message

#2108993

JimmyDavid
View Profile

The not-so-morphs

The word "morph" is thrown around a lot, in the snake hobby. There’s morph this, morph that. I visit breeders sites and they promote their "morphs". Well, the fact is that most times people use the word in the wrong way. The scientific community could be slapping us all over, by now, and our "morphs"...

Let’s go back to school here, shall we(?). A morphed (means "changed") animal is one that, for no clear reason, got new traits. That means it got his genes altered. It’s a mutant.
- Genetic handicaps don’t qualify as morph: albinos, leucistic animals, etc...
- Tiger retics do NOT qualify as a morph, in a scientific way (it was never proven that the original tiger that arrived in captivity was a mutated animal or a specimen from an area where others looked like that also, wich would make it a locality trait and, in fact, a co-dominant mutation is a rare thing).
- Homozygous genetics forms (even if derived from a proven morph) are not morphs themselves. Super tigers, ivory retics, etc... are not morphs. They are only the enhanced version of an already different snake. The morph, if at all, is the hetero (simpler) form.

The fact is, we deal with much less "morphs" than we think :)

12/29/09 02:39pm