NERD - New England Reptile Distributors

Mutation: Primary
Color and pattern

First Produced
Davies Line - 2003
NERD Line - 1995

AKA
Co-dominant Hypo, het Black-Eyed Leucistic

Related Projects
Black-Eyed Leucistic
Spider: Fire

The Fire mutation is a lovely hypomelanistic morph, with satiny gold coloration. Black pigmentation is greatly reduced, leaving rich coffee-brown markings instead. Fire ball pythons also exhibit banded patterns, and many specimens possess varying extremes of lateral

Glossary: lateral

Of, or pertaining to, the sides of an animal.

blushing. In and of itself, the Fire is a very pretty mutation that crosses well with other traits. This mutation acts in a co-dominant manner, with Fires being the heterozygous

Glossary: heterozygous

possessing non-identical alleles for the trait in question. A heterozygous carrier for a recessive trait looks normal, while a heterozygous gene carrier for a co-dominant trait looks different from both the wild-type and homozygous forms. See our pages on genetics for more info.

form. The homozygous

Glossary: homozygous

Possessing identical alleles for the trait in question. Homozygous mutations are visibly different than normal (wild type) ball pythons, and in the case of co-dominant genes, they possess a different appearance than the heterozygous form as well.

(super) form is a Black-Eyed Leucistic - a white ball python with jet-black eyes. Fire ball pythons made their way into the spotlight in 2003, when UK breeder Eric Davies produced Fires, Black-Eyed Leucistics, and normals from Fire x Fire breeding. Subsequent breedings confirmed the Black-Eyed Leucistic as homozygous form of the Fire trait.

Prior to the "Ball Python Craze," a separate bloodline of NERD co-dominant hypos was established in the early 90's. At one point the decision was made to "back burner" this hypo project & focus on the recessive Hypo/Ghost traits. The discovery of the Fire's beautiful super/homozygous form turned our attention back to our line of Co-Dom Hypos, and we've since crossed this bloodline into our Spider project with lovely results. Additionally, NERD-line CDH/Fireballs have been proven compatible with the original Davies line Fires. Our first Black-Eyed Leucistic was produced from crossing the 2 lines, and hatched during the Daytona Expo in August 2006.

[ Back ]