The founding animal for this morph was a wild-
caught specimen from the Northern Territory which,
after being swapped for some other animals, ended
up in Simon Stone’s collection at Southern Cross
Reptiles. This female was named ‘Holy Grail’ by
Simon, and was bred to a normal male to produce
some 100% hets. Then het-to-het pairings and
visual-to-het pairings were used to produce more
Marbles. At first it was
thought that the hets may
carry a visual marker, as
they all had quite a
cryptic, ‘granite-like’
pattern, but this was later
disproven. Just as Simon
was getting to the point
of having enough animals to start breeding them to
release into the hobby, he decided to retire, so the
entire project was offered up for sale. I spoke to him
at the time, and from memory there were approxi-
mately 80 animals in the group. Simon said he
hoped that the buyer would keep the whole
assemblage intact through to the following breeding
season to really establish the project, particularly
since the majority of the animals were possible hets
or very young Marbles. However, the person who
eventually ended up buying the animals didn’t have
the same idea, and sold off a few small groups to
others in the hobby. That is how I acquired my origi-
nal animals. Unfortunately, upon arrival several of
the snakes were a lot smaller than described, and I
also later discovered that a number were the wrong
sex, which was disappointing, but these things
happen and I still consider myself lucky to have
been working with this morph for several years now.
When Marbles first hatch they are a uniform light
pink colour, with areas of brown and occasionally a
wild-type pattern on the top of the head; they also
possess blue eyes which makes them extremely
distinctive. After a few
sheds the base colour will
generally begin to change
to a more creamy yellow,
and you will often see a
few random individual
scales start to darken.
Occasional specimens
will have areas of white coming up the sides from
the belly - similar to how a pied animal can look - or
almost the exact opposite, with random blobs or
patches of dark scales clustered together on the
body. As the animals continue to grow and shed the
base colour will continue to intensify, becoming a
rich yellow, and along the body more and more
flecking will appear. The flecking can vary in colour
from a very light brown through to jet black.
Although the amount of flecking will always increase
over time, it is also very variable. Within a few
sheds, you can tell that some animals will end up
very heavily flecked, and by the age of 6-8 months
may be almost entirely covered. I know some
people have said that they cannot see the appeal of