The jaguar gene origionated in a breeding between two coastal carpet pythons, the result was an animal that has reduced pattern with a near clear dorsal area and brighter colours. The name came from the spots that sometimes are present and resemble the markings of the south american jaguar.

Being a co-dominant gene a breedign between a jag and any other carpets results in just under half a clutch of jags (though it can be much less) and the rest siblings that look like the normal parent and carry no genetic information for the jag mutation in their genome.

Since this first jag breeding jags have been crossed with many different morelia to encourage different charachteristics. One of my faviourites is the jungle jag that is generaly more yellow.

These three pictures are of a 50% jungle jag.

THE MISUNDERSTANDING!!!!!!

The higher the % of jungle in the jag the more sought after the animal so why are most 50% jungle jags as bright if not a bit more yellow than their 75% cousins? If you are fortunate to own a high yellow jungle and you breed that to a dull jungle the offspring will fall somewhere in the middle in terms of colour and this holds true for jags. To improve the yellow of a jag you must breed it to a partner that is more yellow than it is.

The 50% jungle jags tend to be of good quality because they are from a time when jags were really very expensive, the only people who were prepared to buy them were the very same people who had spent the money on good quality jungles. The result was excellent offspring. Unfortunately there are very few top quality jungles around so the people who then bred these nice 50% jungle jags were forced to do so to average jungles and the results were offsprings whose colours had actually been dulled down even though they were of higher % jungle.

This is not to say that there are not superb 75% jungle jags out there just that you must judge each specemin as an individual and not weigh too much on the %

The following three photos are of a Irian Jaya jag to coastal breeding. the result is a whitish backround and really quite beautiful black marking.

Animals produced by Rick Hughes.