The Fire Ball Python Morph is a popular Ball Python morph that was first proven out in 1995. It is a co-dominant mutation. This is similar to a dominant mutation, only that there is a Super form of the Fire morph if two of the alleles contain the mutation.
We will discuss more about the genetics of the Fire morph below. This morph is commonly available and easy to produce, resulting in a modest price tag. You could expect to pay anywhere from $50 for a standard Fire Ball Python.
Fire Ball Python Description
The Fire morph is a relatively subtle color mutation, at least to an unfamiliar eye. This morph is lighter in color than a Normal Ball Python. The lighter patterns are almost gold in color while the black pigmentation is washed out with shades of brown.
The Super form of the Fire is a Black Eyed Leucistic. This is similar in appearance to the Blue Eyed Leucistic, which is produced when you breed two Butter Ball Pythons (and some other morphs) together. The main difference is that this snake has Black Eyes instead of Blue. This snake can also have yellow blotches along its body.
Fire Ball Python Genetics
The Fire Ball Python is a co-dominant morph. This means that, like a dominant morph, you only need one Fire to produce Fire babies. However, if you breed two Fire’s together, you will produce Super Fire’s.
A Fire Ball Python will contain the genetic mutation in one of the alleles in their DNA sequence while a Super Fire 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 Fire Ball Pythons.
Fire Ball Python x Normal Ball Python
The simplest way to produce a Fire Ball Python is to pair a Fire with a normal Ball Python. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Fire’s and 50% Normal Ball Pythons. This pairing will not create any Super Fires.
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 FN, FN, NN and NN. FN means that one of the alleles were Fire while the other was normal. The NN outcome means that both genes were normal.
As the Fire morph is a co-dominant mutation, only one of the alleles needs to hold the trait, for the offspring to be a Fire. This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Fires and 50% Normal Ball Pythons.
Fire x Fire
Another way to produce a Fire Ball Python is to pair a Fire with another Fire. The resulting offspring will consist of 50% Fire Ball Pythons, 25% Normal Ball Pythons and 25% Super Fires.
In this case, the 4 possible outcomes were FF, FN, FN and NN. FF occurred when both parents passed on the Fire gene. As this mutation is co-dominant, this combination will result in a Super Fire Ball Python.
This means that the offspring will consist of 50% Fire, 25% Normal and 25% Super Fire.
Super Fire x Normal Ball Python
If you breed a Super Fire to a Normal Ball Python, all of the offspring will be Fire. This is because one of the parents will always pass the Fire gene while the other parent will always pass the Normal gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be FN, i.e. one Fire allele and one Normal allele.
Super Fire x Super Fire Ball Python
If you breed a Super Fire to a Super Fire Ball Python, all of the offspring will be Super Fire. This is because both of the parents will always pass the Fire gene. As a result, all of the offspring will be FF, i.e. both alleles will be Fire.
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
Chocolate Ball Python Morph
Cinnamon Ball Python Morph
Enchi Ball Python Morph
GHI Ball Python Morph
Mojave Ball Python Morph
Orange Dream Ball Python Morph
Pied Ball Python Morph
