The Chocolate Ball Python Morph is a popular Ball Python morph that was first proven out in 1999 by BHB. It is a co-dominant mutation. This is similar to a dominant mutation, only that there is a Super form of the Chocolate morph if two of the alleles contain the mutation.
We will discuss more about the genetics of the Chocolate 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 Chocolate Ball Python. A Super Chocolate will cost anywhere from $400 upwards.
Chocolate Ball Python Description
The Chocolate Ball Python is a darker colored snake. Like a normal, the background color is generally black. However, the patterning on the snake is much darker, with a chocolate brown appearance.
The Super form of the Chocolate morph looks completely different. The black background on these snakes becomes a dark brown. The patterning is reduced and is usually dark tan in color.
Chocolate Ball Python Genetics
The Chocolate Ball Python is a co-dominant morph. This means that, like a dominant morph, you only need one Chocolate to produce Chocolate babies. However, if you breed two Chocolate Ball Pythons together, you will produce Super Chocolates.
A Chocolate Ball Python will contain the genetic mutation in one of the alleles in their DNA sequence while a Super Chocolate 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 Chocolate Ball Pythons.
Chocolate Ball Python x Normal Ball Python
The simplest way to produce a Chocolate morph is to pair a Chocolate with a normal ball python. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Chocolates and 50% Normal Ball Pythons. This pairing will not create any Super Chocolates.
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 Chocolate while the other was normal. The NN outcome means that both genes were normal.
As the Chocolate morph is a co-dominant mutation, only one of the alleles needs to hold the trait, for the offspring to be a Chocolate. This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Chocolates and 50% Normal Ball Pythons.
Chocolate x Chocolate
Another way to produce a Chocolate Ball Python is to pair a Chocolate with another Chocolate. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Chocolate Ball Pythons, 25% Normal Ball Pythons and 25% Super Chocolates.
In this case, the 4 possible outcomes were CC, CN, CN and NN. CC occurred when both parents passed on the Chocolate gene. As this mutation is co-dominant, this combination will result in a Super Chocolate Ball Python.
This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Chocolate, 25% Normal and 25% Super Chocolate.
Super Chocolate x Normal Ball Python
If you breed a Super Chocolate to a Normal Ball Python, all of the offspring will be Chocolate. This is because one of the parents will always pass the Chocolate gene while the other parent will always pass the Normal gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be CN, i.e. one Chocolate allele and one Normal allele.
Super Chocolate x Super Chocolate Ball Python
If you breed a Super Chocolate to a Super Chocolate Ball Python, all of the offspring will be Super Chocolate. This is because both of the parents will always pass the Chocolate gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be CC, i.e. both alleles will be Chocolate.
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
Champagne 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
