female ball genes?

[Anaconda6769]

I have read somewhere,thought it was on "big breeder" site that females/het females do not passs on their genes to their daughters? Or something like that!? Can anyone clear this up?!

[Ash]

I'm no expert, but I know that there are certain genes that are only carried on the X chromosomes or Y chromosomes of some species, but that would more likely mean that fathers couldn't pass those genes to their daughters (because only males have Y chromosomes). However, I've never heard of this happening in ball pythons before, so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. :-)

[Spaniard]

Each parent passes on half of their genes to their offspring. If females didn't pass on their genes we would have no snake babies.

I'm sure there was some misunderstanding going on.

[RandyRemington]

Snakes are like birds when it comes to the gender chromosomes. Rather than the mammal XY system they have ZW gender chromosomes. Also, they are opposite from mammals in that it's the female snakes that have the mismatched pair and determine the gender of the offspring. Female snakes are ZW and males are ZZ and the offspring are male or female depending on which gender chromosome (Z or W) they got from mom.

We haven't yet identified any ball python mutations on either of the gender chromosomes. Presumably most or all ball python mutations so far are not related to gender.

Chickens have some sex linked traits so it's possible we might eventually find them in ball pythons. How they would be inherited depends on if the mutation was on the Z or the W. A W mutation could never be seen in a male. A Z mutation might be dominant in females and co-dominant or even recessive in males. Or maybe females could only carry a Z mutation and only males could express it. Maybe appearance related genes aren't likely on either ball python Z or W since ball python appearance doesn’t vary by gender as much as birds to start with.