An attempt at explaining chromosomes

[Pythonfriend]

Hi there

i think there is a bit of confusion when it comes to Chromosomes, what they are, how they work, and what it means for breeding. So ill try to give a bit of explanations and some examples.

Chromosomes always come in pairs, basically in all animals. Ball pythons have 18 chromosome pairs.

if you look at one specific chromosome pair, one of the chromosomes is from mom, the other one from dad.

Lets start with examples right away, i color-code the chromosomes to track them and simplify to only 4 pairs:

Mom          Dad
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X


Offspring:
X X
X X
X X
X X

Here is where the recombinations come in: Of course mom and dad did have 2 different grandparents each, and mom got 1 chromosome in each pair from grandmother, one from grandfather.

Mom          Dad
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X


examples of possible Offspring:

X X          X X             X X
X X          X X             X X 
X X          X X             X X 
X X          X X             X X

the mechanism is that egg cells and sperm cells contain only one set of chromosomes, and they combine to form a zygote, which turns into a baby. Zygote as in homozygous / heterozygous. Lets add that.

Mom          Dad
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X

Examples of possible egg cells from mom:
X              X
X               X        
X               X        
X              X         

and sperm cells from dad:
X                 X 
X                 X 
X                 X 
X                 X

examples of possible Offspring:
X X          X X             X X
X X          X X             X X 
X X          X X             X X 
X X          X X             X X

That recombination is always going on in the background when breeding BPs, with all the chromosomes that are not of special interest to us. Lets keep that in mind, and from now on all the normal chromsomes will be in black, relevant ones will be colored.

Lets breed a super pastell to an enchi, ill give super pastell the color red and enchi will be green.

Dad          Mom
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X
X X           X X

sperm cells        egg cells
100%                50% + 50%
X                      X        X
X                      X        X
X                      X        X
X                      X        X

offspring:
50%             50%
X X              X X
X X              X X
X X              X X
X X              X X

as you can see, we get 50% pastell and 50% pastell enchi


And for now ill take a break and wait for a bit of feedback, later i will do gene complexes / allelic genes / genes that are on the same locus, however you want to call it. Mystic potions and toffinos. And i will also look at how gender is determined, and the strange stuff going on with coral glow. Ill continue maybe in 2 hours. Maybe i will later turn it into a sticky, or someone else can use it and advance on it, after all its easy to copypaste and edit this.