27/06/2025
You're not seeing visual het Monsoons. You're seeing another incomplete dominant gene "Fractal"
The incomplete dominant gene was coined as Fractal at one point, and everyone was told Fractals are all 100% het Monsoon. If you were around at the time, this is the same case that happened with Leopards and Pieds.
I purchased the 2 snakes in the picture as a Pastel and Super Pastel both 50% het Monsoon in 2019. I thought, how stupid to sell these for so cheap cause they're so obviously visually het for Monsoon. I held back 22 females that all had the "visual het" Monsoon look, 11 from each male. I bred these 2 males to all 22 females, with no Monsoons being produced anywhere.
The person who coined the name Fractal, from my observation, has also not produced any visual Monsoons, though I could be wrong.
In 2023, Josh Jensen had bought a het Candy 50% het Monsoon, bred it, got over 80 babies, and all looked what we would all consider to be "visual hets". I wholesaled out most of the babies I got from the 22 females, but it looks as if Josh has a "Super Fractal" He can chime in on this if he likes as well. I've seen the pictures of the parents of his, and both were Fractals, so a Super is not out of the realm of reality. Josh also shed tested his male for het Monsoon and it came back negative.
Personally I've just been waiting for someone else to figure it out and post somewhere, but it seems even today people are posting, and even selling, 50% and 66% het Monsoons as 100% because they're so "visually het". I've told a few people here and there my findings. I think most people just don't want to believe they've spent time, money, and energy into something that's not going to produce Monsoons for them. The cool thing though is that we have a whole other gene to work with and mix into other stuff! Not to mention there's already been some crazy combos produced with Fractal!
In addition, my observations over the last 25 years of breeding reptiles, when there happens to be a spontaneous mutation, most of the time there is more than 1 gene that gets mutated. I've seen it at least 4 times in Ball Pythons. I've also seen in the wild when certain (colubrid) morphs are found, there have been others in the area. This could be a coincidence, but it adds to my theory either way.
I'm curious if others have figured this out or bought, or held back "visual het" Monsoons and not gotten Monsoons from them. Josh and myself can't be the only ones.
