Quick question for the breeders...

Ok I can't resist correcting you silly people. YES there is het mojave it just looks like... a mojave! Mojave/platty/pastel are co-dominant traits. Het does NOT mean it looks normal, it means that the animal carries ONE copy of the mutant gene.. technically it means the two genes on the locus are different.

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Originally Posted by mr~python

oh my gosh. that is just rediculous that i know more about genetics then randy and im 13! i wish i coulda got here first so you guys could see a 13 year old rip him apart. maybe next time:P

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Not a chance ... Randy is wicked smart ... you're just learning ... give it time. ;)

-adam

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Originally Posted by Shelby

Ok I can't resist correcting you silly people. YES there is het mojave it just looks like... a mojave! Mojave/platty/pastel are co-dominant traits. Het does NOT mean it looks normal, it means that the animal carries ONE copy of the mutant gene.. technically it means the two genes on the locus are different.

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Even though Randy would have us all believe that the technical term for a pastel is a visable het, most people do not commonly call a pastel a "het" or a fireball a "het"... because it is a visable morph. Granted... there is a super form for fires and pastels, and the super is TECHNICALLY called a homozygous, there aren't many folks that actually refer to a Super Pastel as a Homozygous Pastel.

It's like the blue eyed lucy... no one really knows what all creates them. If we did it Randy's way, the blue eyed lucy would be a Homozygous Platinum, or a Homozygous Lesser, or a Homozygous Phantom.... and therein lies yet another question... Blue Eyed Lucys (to my understanding) have been created Lesser/Lesser, Platty/Lesser, Phantom/Lesser, Mojave/Lesser, so tell me how you would explain the homozygous trait. And which one is the het?

I am in no way a genetics expert... and I still get genetics stuff wrong all the time... but here's what I'm saying... It would be MUCH more simple for the newer people if the terms het and homozygous would be used for simple recessive genotypes and the co-doms and doms would just be pastels and super pastels.

...okay.. I'm ready for my lashing now

No lashing, just discussion. IMHO with all the dominant type mutations it's getting complicated enough that it will be simpler/better for the new people to learn the real meaning of heterozygous and homozygous rather than continuing the snake industries limited (mis) use as only applying het to recessive. If you understand that the pastel phenotype is a het pastel genotype you can use the same rules for predicting its offspring genotypes as with albino hets.

Here is a theory on blue-eyed leucistics. It may be that lesser, mojave, phantom, Vin Russo high yellow lemons, and perhaps butter and even the dilute gene that turns lessers into phantoms are all different mutations of the same gene. This is fundamentally different than say pastel and spider, which have been proven to be different mutations of DIFFERENT genes. The important thing to remember about different mutations of the SAME gene (alleles) is that you can only have at most two copies of the same gene - one from mom and one from dad. In this theory the leucistics are homozygous for mutant versions of this gene but the versions don't have to be the same. For example, the homozygous lesser seems to be the whitest so far. The lesser/phantom combo produces the karma with a little back stripe. The lesser/mojave combo has the cheek color. The homozygous mojave the purplish head. Surprisingly the apparent homozygous phantom has lots of gray color and probably wouldn't even be called a leucistic. And Greg Graziani even produced a very white blue eyed leucistic from high yellow lemon X mojave. Per this theory these are all "homozygous" for mutant versions of a common gene. There is actually a better term than "homozygous" but I can't find it right now (but will keep looking) that indicates that the two copies aren't necessarily the same but neither are normal. Per Hahaman's twist the platy may even be "homozygous" for mutant versions of this common gene with dilute being yet another mutant allele but apparently the homozygous dilute either isn’t possible or looks normal.

Genetically speaking....the yellowbelly (het. ivory) really facinates me....it seems to 'bring' out or enhance anything.....then you get a crazying looking animal like a yellowbelly stipe....

Also, wasn't RDRs 'goblin marker' in the mix in some of his phantom breedings? I never hear to much about the chance of that being mixed in with the lucies somewhere.

Like Ken, I am trying to get a true grasp on this stuff ;)

The only main problem i see reffering to say pastels as het pastels and other co-doms is it would confuse a newbee let me explain.If new people start seeing people refer to pastels as het pastels it opens the door to scammers.All it takes is one scammer to get a high gold ball python and start selling them to new people who do not know the truth.When i first started out i believed everything i read on some sites.I figured these people knew what they were talking about:) .Well luckily i have a friend who breeds several ball python morphs:D .Before i bought anything i asked him and most of the things i allmost bought was crap as the person was lying.When i explain the ball python genetics to someone i explain the true hets,co-doms and doms.The ball python genetics are confusing enough at first:O .

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Originally Posted by joepythons

All it takes is one scammer to get a high gold ball python and start selling them to new people who do not know the truth.

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That stuff already happens....I hate scammers :matrixfig :explosion

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

That stuff already happens....I hate scammers :matrixfig :explosion

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TRUE but the more people we make aware of the gentics on ball pythons maybe we can get rid of the scams:D .

wouldnt saying, for example,"pastel (het and homozygous)" be the same thing as saying that a het albino has a "het" form?

joepythons,

Apparently genetics is going to be a little confusing no mater what. But I think if we keep working on using the correct terminology it will be the least confusing as possible for the most people. If we keep trying to find a better way to explain things I believe most everyone can eventually understand.

If potential ball python breeders understand that hets for dominant type morphs aren't normal looking and that pastel is a dominant type morph (the co-dominant or incomplete dominant type) then they will not expect a het pastel genotype to look normal. They will also have the added benefit of understanding why a pastel passes the pastel gene to half of it's offspring and why a homozygous (super) pastel passes it to all of them. I can see where using "het pastel" is confusing to the old snake breeders because we have been using "het" to mean normal looking for so long with the early recessive morphs. However, now that there are so many dominant type mutations and combos I believe the benefits of understanding the wider meaning of heterozygous and applying it will outweigh the discomfort of the transition. The sooner we as an industry make this transition the sooner newbies won't have an old system to eventually unlearn.


mr~python,

What I meant by "pastel (het and homozygous)" was that both the heterozygous and the homozygous pastel genotypes have clear bellies. If you prefer the phenotypes to the genotypes that translates to both pastels and super pastels. Because albino is the recessive mutation type the het albino genotype has the normal phenotype - i.e. the het form of albino is normal looking. The het form of pastel is a visible pastel morph.

My notation wasn’t the best there so I’ll repost it as a table (if this forum supports them) now that Adam’s spreadsheet comment gave me the idea for an html table generator directly from Excel. I still hope to eventually build an interactive online version but for now a simple way to generate forum tables such as those to produce Punnet’s squares from Excel sounds useful. I suspect there is already a tool out there to do this but it will be fun to make my own.

But do try to avoid mixing the morph type descriptions with the word "form" as in "dominant form" and "co-dominant form" as pretty soon you will be describing the same mutation as being both dominant and co-dominant when what you are really describing is the appearances of the heterozygous and homozygous genotypes. The actual mutation type doesn't change depending on if you are looking at a pastel or a super pastel.