Banana Ball Pythons: A Look Back At The Morph

In the beginning, there was talk of a “sex linked” trait the Bananas possessed. At the time, many, including myself, were skeptical, but we took the chance in buying a male. From what I was told by multiple breeders working on this project, they were getting predominantly female Banana/Coral Glows and predominantly male non-Banana/Coral Glow siblings.

Well, from my breeding in 2011, I noticed the “sex linked” trait in ALL of my clutches. The Bananas were predominantly one sex and the non-Banana siblings were the other. The difference was, I got the opposite of what the other breeders were getting. Instead of female Bananas and male non-Bananas, I was getting the reverse. I was the first to produce a Banana Ball Python from a male maker.

We figured out that my male came from a visual male Banana. And the male Bananas produced in the past came from female Banana. This led us to the conclusion that whichever parent carries the trait will determine the sex that the male Banana offspring is going to produce.

To simplify the explanation:

*If the male Banana was produced from a female Banana, that male will produce predominantly females (Female maker).

*If the male Banana was produced from a male Banana, that offspring will produce predominantly males (Male maker).

*All of the non Banana siblings in the clutch will be mainly the opposite sex.

This conclusion laid to rest the rumor that Coral Glow and Banana are two different genes. I have produced many different species of reptiles and an assortment of color morphs over the years and I have never seen any color morph that works like this. To most, it is hard to believe that this gene works this way, especially with it being one of the nicer looking traits out there. All in all, we can say it is truly a one-of-a-kind Ball Python morph.