The Champagne Ball Python Morph is a popular Ball Python morph that was first proven out in 2005. It is a co-dominant mutation. This is similar to a dominant mutation, only that there is a Super form of the Champagne morph if two of the alleles contain the mutation.
We will discuss more about the genetics of the Champagne morph below. This morph is commonly available and easy to produce, resulting in a modest price tag. You could expect to pay anywhere from $100 for a standard Champagne Ball Python.
Champagne Ball Python Description
The Champagne Ball Python has a mixture of colours that range from light tan to different shades of brown. These colours blend into each other well while their bellies are generally white.
They have a broken or sporadic dorsal stripes that is generally light tan or yellow in colour. This stripe is surrounded by a dark brown or black scales. This really makes the patterning stand out.
The Super Champagne is almost completely patternless. It is a very dull pink in colour with very dull white patterns breaking through. The scales around the eyes of the snake have a light blue colouration while the eyes themselves are jet black.
Champagne Ball Python History
The Champagne Ball Python morph was first discovered and proven to be a genetic trait by EB Noah in 2005. The super form of the Champagne morph was first proven out by Dave Green in 2012. This proved that the morph was a co-dominant mutation.
This morph caused a lot of excitement in the Ball Python hobby throughout the mid to late 2000’s. The newly discovered genetics were mixed with a lot of different morphs to create never before seen patterns.
The excitement of the Champagne Ball Python quickly died off though. There was only so much you could create with the ‘patternless’ mutation. However, the Champagne is still an important gene used by many breeders while working with multi-gene Ball Pythons.
Champagne Ball Python Genetics
The Champagne Ball Python is a co-dominant morph. This means that, like a dominant morph, you only need one Champagne to produce Champagne babies. However, if you breed two Champagnes together, you will produce Super Champagnes.
A Champagne Ball Python will contain the genetic mutation in one of the alleles in their DNA sequence while a Super Champagne will contain the genetic mutation in both of the alleles. The appearance of these two snakes is visibly different, which distinguishes the co-dominant mutation from a dominant mutation.
How are genetics passed on in Ball Pythons
We are not going to go into too much detail about how genetics work in snakes in this article. We have explained it in detail in our Recessive Ball Python Morphs article. Make sure you check that out if you are not familiar about how genetic mutations are passed.
While the article discusses recessive Ball Pythons, the concept of how parents pass on their genetics is the same for all co-dominant morphs, the appearance of the offspring is just different.
Here is a basic breakdown of a DNA strand:
Locus – This is the location of a gene/allele on a DNA strand.
Allele – Genes are made up of pairs of Alleles. Therefore an allele is a single gene on a given locus.
The image above shows a DNA strand of two snakes. Let’s say, they are a Normal and Pied Ball Python. Let’s say the first locus on this DNA strand is for the Pied Gene. You can see that the first snake has 2 normal genes (not Pied) while the second snake has two Pied genes (visible Pied).
When these snakes reproduce, they will each pass on one of their Alleles from each locus to their offspring. This means that the offspring will receive one of their ‘Pied’ genes from their mother and one from their father.
We will use this concept to explain how different pairings will produce Champagne Ball Pythons.
Champagne Ball Python x Normal Ball Python
The simplest way to produce a Champagne Ball Python is to pair a Champagne with a normal ball python. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Champagnes and 50% Normal Ball Pythons. This pairing will not create any Super Champagnes.
As you can see, there 4 possible outcomes. We have names each allele and colour coded them. As each parent can only pass one gene each, the possible outcomes are 1-3, 1-4, 2-3 and 2-4. Alleles 1-2 cannot both be passed, either can 3-4 as this would mean a single parent passed on both of the genes.
So the 4 possible outcomes were CN, CN, NN and NN. CN means that one of the alleles were Champagne while the other was normal. The NN outcome means that both genes were normal.
As the Champagne morph is a co-dominant mutation, only one of the alleles needs to hold the trait, for the offspring to be a Champagne. This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Champagnes and 50% Normal Ball Pythons.
Champagne x Champagne
Another way to produce a Champagne Ball Python is to pair a Champagne with another Champagne. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Champagne Ball Pythons, 25% Normal Ball Pythons and 25% Super Champagnes.
In this case, the 4 possible outcomes were CC, CN, CN and NN. CC occurred when both parents passed on the Champagne gene. As this mutation is co-dominant, this combination will result in a Super Champagne Ball Python.
This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Champagne, 25% Normal and 25% Super Champagne
Super Champagne x Normal Ball Python
If you breed a Super Champagne to a Normal Ball Python, all of the offspring will be Champagne. This is because one of the parents will always pass the champagne gene while the other parent will always pass the Normal gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be CN, i.e. one Champagne allele and one Normal allele.
Super Champagne x Super Champagne Ball Python
If you breed a Super Champagne to a Super Champagne, all of the offspring will be Super Champagne. This is because both of the parents will always pass the champagne gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be CC, i.e. both alleles will be Champagne.
Other Ball Python Morph Guides
We have a wide range of Ball Python Morph guides. You can check some of them out here:
Albino Ball Python Morph
Banana Ball Python Morph
Black Pastel Ball Python Morph
Blue Eyed Leucistic Ball Python Morph
Butter Ball Python Morph
Chocolate Ball Python Morph
Cinnamon Ball Python Morph
Enchi Ball Python Morph
Fire Ball Python Morph
GHI Ball Python Morph
Mojave Ball Python Morph
Orange Dream Ball Python Morph
Pied Ball Python Morph
