A tale of two morphs- The Coral Glow/Banana Story

Posted November 2, 2016

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Personal History:

Let me start off with my personal story of the Coral Glow. I remember the first time I saw a White Smoke (Coral Glow) as it was being called back then. I was attending a Reptile Super Show around 2009. The show turn out was pretty great and many of the bigger names in the hobby now were in attendance. I picked up several het pieds from Justin Kobylka and my foundation pair of <a href=”http://www.geneticdreams.net/?p=122&preview=true”>het VPI Axanthics</a> from another vendor. As I was walking thru the show I saw it. I don’t recall the vendors name, but they had the White Smoke (as it was being called back then) displayed at the corner of their booth. It was in an Acrylic Tower prominently displayed. And it’s no understatement to say it literally caught my eye from halfway down the row. I ran over to get a closer look. Keep in mind this was before the days of Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. The only way you would get to see or know about the cool new morphs was at shows, or if you knew a breeder who was willing to let you into their collection.

I sat in awe and I am sure I stood there like a fanboy with my jaw dropped open staring at this absolutely amazing creature. Up to now the ball python hobby had very few knockout morphs and colors. The most notable were the Piebald, Albino, Axanthic, and Pastel. There was literally nothing like the White Smoke (Coral Glow) in the ball python realm. Here was this amazing snake in purple and orange hues with some white flaming. It was the only one at the show that season and with a price tag of $30,000 that wasn’t too surprising.

This was going to be a morph to watch. And one that I vowed I would someday add to my collection and work with. I walked away from that show with many new additions to my selectively growing collection. But I never forgot the beauty of the White Smoke (Coral Glow) .

History:

While researching for this article I stumbled across some old discussions and pricing on Coral Glows. Back in June 2011 Female Bananas were $12,000-$20,000 and Male Bananas were $60,000. At THAT time FEMALES were far more common than males. The bigger breeders that could afford the original buy-in prices of $80,000 for Coral Glow/Banana were saying that they were having problems producing males and all they were producing were FEMALES. So very few males were made available and as you can see there was a significate price difference. At the time it a few people had started to speculate that males were being held back and that sex-linking information was being hidden. Given what we know today I’ll let the reader draw his/her own conclusions. My theory is that the early investors that purchased MALES had in fact purchased Female Maker Males and were as such producing mostly females. That is giving the early breeders the benefit of the doubt. Comment your thoughts below:

Text and Picture below are directly from NERD.

Original White Smoke

Genetic Morph: Coral Glow, White Smoke, Banana
Status: Proven Dominant
When: 2002
By Whom: NERD

New weapons in the NERD arsenal, the Coral Glows were first produced in November 2002 from our beautiful Whitesmoke Albino male. Several names were batted around for these lavender-and-tangerine gems, but with their sunset coloration the term Coral Glow was soon established. This morph MUST be seen in person to truly be appreciated, as both animals possess an entire spectrum of orange and purple pigments impossible to capture with a camera. To further ice the cake, these vibrant serpents exhibit a random sprinkling of darker scales throughout their patterns. Needless to say, the future for this new mutation is as bright as the mutation itself!

Genetics: Fast forward to 2012. By this time the White Smoke/Coral Glow and Bananas had started to make their way to medium-sized breeders. And soon after rumors started to spread throughout the community about weird sex ratios coming from Coral Glows/Banana (the hobby had adopted these new names). Originally only females were being made so the gene slowly made it’s way into the hobby. At this point Sex Linking in the Ball Python world was completely unknown.

Sex Linking: To add to the Coral Glow/Banana mystery there was the Sex Linking. See Part 2 to read about this.