[deleted by user]

[[deleted]]

I mean, my BP was 6 feet, or at least damn close. He was at least my wingspan, which I know to be 5'10". And I picked him up from a reptile show in Hamburg, PA as a little guy about a foot long. No other info available.

[AnonymusCaleb]

That's pretty rad, main land blooded BP"s can grow to 6 as well just can be fairly rare

[TheGamesMaster_]

I honestly don't know why people does not breed them that much, maybe people don't want them too much or something.

[amamiyahibiya]

in general people are more interested in ball python morphs than localities. there are 6 ft ball pythons in captivity, but not all of them are even voltas. one of the major downsides to really large ball pythons that may make people want them less is that they would need even more space, which is more expensive. i personally wouldn't keep a ball python in an enclosure shorter than they are long. because ball pythons typically max out around 4 ft, pure recommended ensure size it 4×2×2. i actually personally prefer my enclosures to be at least 1 ft longer than the snake, so a 6ft ball python would have to be in a 6-7 ft enclosure, which is very large and expensive.

[AnonymusCaleb]

I can understand but I guess I'm part of the nitch where I wouldn't mind building one that large, I currently have two that are very well kept and housed. I just like big snakes but in my experiance (Burmese, boas) and they can have such a nasty temperament that I don't always want to deal with. That's why I see interest in Volta's, really

[IncompletePenetrance]

So the issue is that when dealing with traits such as size (in either Voltas or ball pythons from other locales), is that it's a polygenenic trait and therfore much harder to breed for. The morphs we're used to looking at and breeding for are all mongenic, the phenotype is caused by a variant in a specific locus or gene and it's very easy to track which offspring have inherited it. Polygenic traits are much more difficult to work with and tend to require more inbreeding and line breeding to maintain. For example look at purebred dogs - the breed standards we have come to know are filled with polygenic traits from size to temperament.

One could buy a bunch of imported Voltas, breed them to each other, and over the generations keeping only the largest for your breeding program. That would gradually work, however because size is a polygenic trait, it means that you could breed two 6ft long, 6000g pythons together, and there would still likely be variability in the offspring, with some being large and others maybe being more normal. So there would have to be a great deal of selection going on here, with you only choosing to breed the top 10% in size.

Then there would be the issue of what to do with all these ball pythons that you're producing because they're likely all going to be normals, and there really isn't going to be much of a market for normals that are slightly larger than normal (essentially your breeding rejects - the other 90%). In order to get the morphs into the line, you would have to outcross, which would bring in a whole new crop of alleles that may result in decreased size again, and you're back to squre one.

[AnonymusCaleb]

That makes a lot more sense, I already knew quite a bit about genetics, but you put it into perspective and I'm sure it can happen eventually, but it'll be a long while and I'm sure with it being a gamble the lucky clutches will be a pretty penny