LACKING PIGMENT

So, what makes the Fire and Ivory Burmese pythons unique? For starters, the Fire Burmese python is also known as the Hypo Burmese python. “Hypo, short for hypomelanistic, means that the animal has decreased black or brown melanin,” Melvin explains. Melanin is a dark pigment that is also present in human skin. “The people who discovered this mutation gave them the name Hypo Burmese python because of their lightness of color and lack of melanin.”

On the other hand, the Ivory Burmese python is completely white. “Every hobbyist . . . would be stunned to see a huge white snake for the first time,” says Melvin. “Of course, the ivory stands out against the Hypo. The first time I saw Fire and Ivory pythons was in 2005, somewhere in Asia. At that point I had no idea if the lightness of the Fire python and the White Burmese python genes were inheritable. After a couple of years, a friend of mine managed to get an Ivory Burmese python, and bred it with an Albino Burmese python. This produced 100 percent Hypos. Afterward, he also managed to breed with another Ivory python, and this produced 100 Ivory Burmese pythons. So, that [proved] that these snakes carry co-dominant genes.”