What morph is my new spotted python?

[nicandcb]

I have had this little guy, Coffee Bean, for a few months from a private seller who didn't tell me about the morph, and always assumed he was normal/wild type but never saw other pics of spotteds that really matched his pattern. Today I saw someone post on Facebook a very similar snake asking if theirs was a blonde, which got me curious. It doesn't matter, I'm not breeding him, but just wondering! He is 1 year old, 29g and ~40cm.

 

[Sdaji]

It's a hybrid Spotted x Children's Python, not a morph but could be het for something.

Lovely snake which will make a lovely pet

Most of the old hybrid lines have died out now. They were common in the 1990s when most people just bred any Antaresia with any other Antaresia, but then people started wanting locality or at least species pure animals and breeders stopped working with tbose old crossed lines. More recently with the morph boom we've seen people crossing them again to get morphs from different speciee/races together, and the original albino 'Spotted' was actually a hybrid, so we're seeing a lot more hybrids getting around again in recent years.

 

[nicandcb]

It's a hybrid Spotted x Children's Python, not a morph but could be het for something.

Lovely snake which will make a lovely pet

Most of the old hybrid lines have died out now. They were common in the 1990s when most people just bred any Antaresia with any other Antaresia, but then people started wanting locality or at least species pure animals and breeders stopped working with tbose old crossed lines. More recently with the morph boom we've seen people crossing them again to get morphs from different speciee/races together, and the original albino 'Spotted' was actually a hybrid, so we're seeing a lot more hybrids getting around again in recent years.

Oh wow really! That's so interesting. He was sold to me as spotted but I don't expect the seller to have known. I guess that might mean he's a little smaller than a regular spotted. I absolutely love his colouration and pattern, but couldn't find any similar pics like I said. He's just a pet for me and I love him as is but I do like knowing genetics stuff out of interest.

It's a hybrid Spotted x Children's Python, not a morph but could be het for something.

Lovely snake which will make a lovely pet

Most of the old hybrid lines have died out now. They were common in the 1990s when most people just bred any Antaresia with any other Antaresia, but then people started wanting locality or at least species pure animals and breeders stopped working with tbose old crossed lines. More recently with the morph boom we've seen people crossing them again to get morphs from different speciee/races together, and the original albino 'Spotted' was actually a hybrid, so we're seeing a lot more hybrids getting around again in recent years.

Also, I was wondering what features indicate that he's the spotted/childrens hybrid?

 

[Sdaji]

The colour (unless the camera is lying) and pattern.

You'll probably find that he'll lose more contrast more than a Spotted Python usually would, but the hybrids usually grow quite large. My very first snake was a male Spotted x Children's (sold to me as a pure Townsville Spotted by the guy who at the time the most highly respected breeder in the country!) and that snake grew to 5' long, one of the largest Antaresia I've ever seen, though that was partly because by the time he died he was also one of, possibly still the oldest Antaresia I've ever seen. Generally speaking though, the maculosa hybrids have pretty good size.

Hybrids can be quite surprising, a friend of mine bought a Children's Python with fairly reduced contrast which looked slightly odd but nothing like any other Antaresia, she was bred to a few different low contrasr male Children's Pythons over the years, then in the last pairing she was with a moderately-patterned male which was 100% known to be a locality pure F1 Children's, and some of the hatchlings came out looking almost like pure Spotted Pythons (if I posted pictures of them on herp forums asking what they were, almost everyone would be completely sure they were pure Spotteds). I never would have guessed she had maculose blood from looking at her or her babies from multiple males, but now I'm sure (and I'm guessing she has ancestry going back to the same breeder/line as my original snake).

I wish these critters could tell us their family trees back to who and where their wild ancestors were collected, it would be very interesting.

 

[Rachie]

Looks like my Het Marbled Children's python. Mabon is a baby (not sure if male or female)

 

[nicandcb]

Looks like my Het Marbled Children's python. Mabon is a baby (not sure if male or female)

Oh yeah he does! Especially the spacing of the pattern.

 

[Skitzmix]

Looks very similar to my stimmy too

 

[Herpetology]

Looks very similar to my stimmy too View attachment 333619

Not at all similar