I've seen ALOT of posts asking this questions recently so thought the below info may be of use to people:
Have I paid more money for it?
At the moment, I dont think you're likely to find a morph for less than this money. This isn't too say that all expensive Royals are morphs... some people will give anything a fancy name and double the price. If in doubt, do research. There are a lot of good sites out there full of pictures of royal morphs. As some of the morphs become more common we can expect the price to drop. At the moment even the codominant morphs that are relitively easy to come by are still very much more expensive than normal animals.
Could the shop have sold me a morph by accident?
At the moment I dont think anyone could buy a royal morph by accident. The traders are not going to do themselves out of cash and will know exactly what they have purchased and what they are selling. They will have paid more for a morph and so wont be selling it as a normal...
Likewise the breeders will know what they are producing and will be able to tell you what morph your snake is if it is not a normal. They will also have sold a morph to a shop for considerably more money that if it were a normal because again, they are not wanting to lose money.
But my normal doesn't look like your normal! It must be a morph!
Royal pythons naturally display incredibly varied markings and colouration so you can have an extremely unusually marked snake that is technically still a normal. But just because it has funky patterning or brighter or duller colouration than 'normal' doesn't make it a morph.
It is only a morph if the traits making it that colour or pattern are genetically heritable i.e. can be passed on to its progeny.
An example of variation between four Normal Royals:
A normal female with partial stripe and extremely yellow markings.
A normal female with an almost perfect stripe
A normal female with very reduced patterning. Her other side has even less markings than this side.
Normal male who exhibits the most 'normal' markings of any of my royals.
As you can see, colour and patterning is highly variable, these are all gorgeous snakes and are all wild type.
just because your snake isn't a morph doesn't make it any less lovely. I consider these three girls of mine to be prettier than some of the morphs out there!
Normals dont have to be boring. And don't be disappointed that you dont have some new fangled morph. There are some absolutely stunning normals out there.
Kat
23-02-2010, 10:00 PM
The only thing I will say is that you haven't mentioned the 'yellow belly' royal. That is something that can be very similar to a 'normal.'
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