Morphs and nature

A questions that came up on a dutch forum,

How is it possible that there are so many (co)dominant morphs out there but almost none in the nature?
A codominant x normal gives 50% codominant offspring so on the whole population the percentage should be high.
Also they live most of the time underground in holes or termite hills so even bright morphs are covered most of the time.

Probably because of the colours, it is a bad camouflage but even then..

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Originally Posted by MATTI

A questions that came up on a dutch forum,

How is it possible that there are so many (co)dominant morphs out there but almost none in the nature?
A codominant x normal gives 50% codominant offspring so on the whole population the percentage should be high.
Also they live most of the time underground in holes or termite hills so even bright morphs are covered most of the time.

Probably because of the colours, it is a bad camouflage but even then..

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In the wild an animal that sticks out for the rest is normally easier prey. A spider would be far less hidden than a normal and so its easier to find and eat.

Also the rate at which a species mutates is Dependant on nature. I odds that a wild yellow belly and a wild yellow belly meeting in the wild is astronomical.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

In the wild an animal that sticks out for the rest is normally easier prey. A spider would be far less hidden than a normal and so its easier to find and eat.

Also the rate at which a species mutates is Dependant on nature. I odds that a wild yellow belly and a wild yellow belly meeting in the wild is astronomical.

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I agree but I wanna focus on the codominant morph like pastel etc.. bred to normal females.

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Originally Posted by MATTI

I agree but I wanna focus on the codominant morph like pastel etc.. bred to normal females.

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Yellow belly is co-dom. yellow belly x yellow belly = Ivory

;) I know..

I can understand why ivory, leucistic, super pastel etc.. will fade in nature because of predatory.
But if you're looking at cinnamon, pastel.. these morphs are not so different from wildcolour but still they are not many in nature.

I know just think of all the great stuff that is still out there and being missed

Because no one in West Africa is rotating 350 gram males in their first winter through 11 - 15 females in a season ... (well, at least they aren't doing that out in the bush) :rofl:

-adam

Keep in mind...there's probably a lot more recessive genes floating around out there than we know about...it takes two carries of the gene to meet and a small chance at producing a homozygous animal...and even then...that animal has to survive to adulthood and be captured.

I'm still trying to figure out what the original poster meant by this:

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Originally Posted by MATTI

How is it possible that there are so many (co)dominant morphs out there but almost none in the nature?

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Obviously there are a lot of morphs in captivity due to selective breeding. Seems like kind of a no brainer, but I wasn't sure what he meant.

Damn Adam, I've been yelling that at my monitor since I started reading this post. I don't think I could have said it any better myself. A+ for MR. Wysocki.

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Originally Posted by muddoc

Damn Adam, I've been yelling that at my monitor since I started reading this post. I don't think I could have said it any better myself. A+ for MR. Wysocki.

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Thank you Tim! ... But I'm sure you could have said it better ... you've got class and more than a few IQ points on me. ;) :P :sweeet:

But wait, I'm just getting started ... lots of things have been tweaking me lately ... wait til ya hear me lay it out in chat Wednesday night ... last week was just a warm up. ;) :sweeet:

-adam