Left: a small ‘reverse Paradox’
carpet python.Above: the Paradox form can conceivably
result in any combination of eye colours.
Right: the part leucistic chimera, along with
a normal albino phenotype.
Below: more from the impressive collection
at ‘Morelia Magic’ All images courtesy Deb &
Wayne Larks.
I have produced Paradox animals from two sepa-
rate lines. All have originated spontaneously, and
were totally unexpected.The first resulted from breeding a pair of Caramel
Jags that were 100% het for albino. They were
predominantly Jungle, with some Coastal, and
would have been lucky to have 10% Darwin blood
in them. Their clutch included a Paradox leucistic
Jag, which was half white and half normal. It died
after about two days; I didn’t expect it to live
because half its head was white, and so was the
area where its lung would have been – a likely
indicator of underlying problems.I kept most of the rest of that clutch, and later
paired a Caramel Jag back to one of its albino
siblings. This produced what is often called a
reverse Paradox animal (really just a Paradox
that’s more normal than albino, rather than the
other way around).There was also a female ‘Sunglow’ (or ‘hypo
albino’ – which tend to be brighter, with more
orange than normal albinos) in that same first
clutch. She proved out to be a ‘Superglow’ and I
paired her in the season just gone with a Zebra
het albino which shared the same grandfather.
There were two Paradox albinos in her clutch, and
both were also Sunglow. I have kept one; he is
very heavily patterned, with one black eye and
one red.My other form of Paradox popped out of an
axanthic Coastal (from Wayne Larks’ bloodline) to
Jungle cross about two years ago. I remember
thinking at the time; that’s not normal! In the same
clutch there were also Ghost Zebras. I paired one
of these to a related animal this year and got two
Paradox animals – one is a Ghost Zebra Jag and the
other is a Caramel Jag. I will be keeping both of
these. More Paradox specimens have been bred
elsewhere from the same line.Paradox Ghost Zebra Jags, Caramel Jagsand Sunglows!NSW breeder, Jarred Sharp, is proving that the Paradox form can have some heritability.Above: Paradox Ghost (hypo axanthic) animal.
Images by Jarred Sharp.