DESCRIPTION
When I first purchased my Tigers in 2001 I was told that they were a proven co-dominant morph. No one doubted this and it was considered common knowledge.
In 2006 I bred a normal Coastal Carpet male to two Tiger Striped females. I was looking forward to the Tiger babies I would be producing. My first female laid twelve fertile eggs, they all hatched and much to my suprise there was no Tigers! The babies were different than normal Carpets, they have a degree of lateral striping and the Tiger head pattern.
A few weeks later my second clutch hatched, 22 eggs and 25 babies(3 pairs of twins). They looked similar to the first clutch. I talked to my friend Jason Baylin (one of my Tigers was from him) and told him what I produced and he was just as shocked as I was. Jason only bred Tiger to Tiger, he never bred a Tiger to a normal.
Jason told me that there are two other breeders who are waiting for clutches from a Tiger to normal. The first one hatched and all were normals...
What I believe I produced are the co-dominant form of Tigers. I am calling them Lesser Tigers. The Tigers that are fully striped are dominate , Super Tigers. Hopefully I will prove this out in 2 or 3 years. The neonate Carpets that I have pictured are the Lesser Tigers.
One of the Tigers that I own and is pictured below is an aberrant Tiger. This snake has the distinctive Tiger head pattern but completly broken stripes and was from a Tiger clutch produced by Ian from Outback Reptiles.