Spider Genetics Question

What I don't understand is why you think SS doesn't result in a super form when using a punnet square.....:confused:

Ss X Ss (Spider x Spider)

.........S......s
S......SS.....Ss
s......Ss......ss

Results:
25% normal
50% spider
25% mythical super

SS X SS (Spider X Spider)

........S......S
S.....SS.....SS
S.....SS.....SS

Results:
100% spiders

When you breed two spiders, you still get normals. If you use SS when you do punnet squares, the spider will ALWAYS give a spider gene, which is not what happens UNLESS you have a super, which apparently no one has produced. Like I said, I'm just confused as to why you use SS.

no i think we are both wrong, if spider was/is dominant that would be SS, if it is co dom, then wouldn't it be more like "Ns"? being it is a het for super spider? oh i give up, for now. i'm gonna have to go do some reserch i guess. let me know what you figure out.

Dominant does not mean SS. Both letters represent an allele of a certain gene. If you use, SS, then that means the spider WILL ALWAYS give the spider gene, which would be the super form. So far, no one has produced a spider that ALWAYS gives the spider gene. Therefore, it is not SS. If it was breeding for a bumblebee would be like this....

SSpp X ssPp (spider X pastel)

........Sp
sP.....SsPp
sp.....Sspp

Results:
50% spiders
50% bumblebees

This is not what happens. I'm just trying to say that just because a spider is dominant does not mean it is represented as SS because a spider WILL give a normal gene if it is not a super. All dominant means is that if you breed two snakes and one gives the dominant gene and one gives a normal gene, the dominant gene will override the normal gene and cause the snake to display the phenotype. Recessives require both parents to give the gene in order for the gene to show itself. Co-dominants only require one parent to give the gene to show itself BUT if both parents give the gene, it displays differently (pastel vs super pastel). What people are trying to find out is what happens to the other 1/4 of the spider x spider punnet square. Since spiders do not always give the spider gene, there is no way for it to be SS. It has to be Ss. And when you write out a square for a Ss X Ss, you get SS, which would be the super form, BUT no one has ever produced one (as far as we know) so I was just asking about what happens to that 25%. Some say SS is lethal, but that has not been proven either.

What Jay said about the difference between dominant, co-dominant, and recessive!

All I have to add is that a lot of this thread has a common confusion between genotype and mutation type.

The ss, Ss, and SS are ways of writing the genotype. That is representing the two copies of a particular gene that the ball inherited from its two parents. The genotype is important because those are the two copies the snake has to pick from when passing one copy to each of its offspring. What the Punnett square represents is the odds per egg of the possible combinations of genotypes that could in theory be passed on. What happens to the ones that hit the SS odds is still a mystery.

The mutation type is different from the genotype. The mutation type is defined by how the different genotypes look (see Jay's phenotype discussion) relative to each other.

I just wanted to point out that the reason spiders produce a mix of spiders and normals is because they have the heterozygous for spider genotype. There is resistance to using "heterozygous" for anything other than recessive but it really does apply and if used instead of misuses of mutation type like "dominant form" there would be a lot less confusion.