caramel albino

I would say that would put a smile on my face. My Het female is 1200 grams right now, and eating like a train. She is an '04 model, so I think she has great potential. My Het male bred great this year, also an '04 model, but no eggs from the females this year. I did get to see a Caramel hatching at Sean's place last year, and the kick butt right out of the egg, and to top it off, they get better looking with each shed.

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

I just "found" one of my het caramel girls that I had pretty much written off with a belly full of eggs ... that's the kind of surprise that puts a smile on your face. ;)

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Wewt!

Yeah, that picture looks like an ice cream sundae...YUM!

thanks for the great picture adam and clearing that up. i have a chance to get a pair of 100% het albino that may have the caramel gene. the parents was a male albino and the female was 50% possible het caramel. i can get the het pair for about the same price as a pair of het albino's for. should i get the het albino's with the chance of producing a caramel someday?

thanks, nate

if you really like caramels, go for a het caramel pair! the 3 yrs you spend raising your het albino pr will be a long time to maybe get a caramel! 3 yrs of cleaning feeding and general care is a long time for a slim chance, imo. the caramels are killer in person, they glow, the color is intense...



vaughn

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Originally Posted by kavmon

if you really like caramels, go for a het caramel pair! the 3 yrs you spend raising your het albino pr will be a long time to maybe get a caramel! 3 yrs of cleaning feeding and general care is a long time for a slim chance, imo. the caramels are killer in person, they glow, the color is intense...



vaughn

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Vaughn is so right on this one. They are AWESOME! You have to see one in person to really get a feel for how hot they are.

I don't know if anyone has yet bred a homozygous albino to a homozygous caramel to test that the two different mutations might not be alleles (different mutations of the same gene). It doesn't seem terribly likely that they are alleles but its one possible explanation for the albino gene showing up in a caramel line going back to the founder. Under my allele theory for caramel and albino it would not be possible for normal looking het albinos to also be het caramel. The theory is that the animal with both one albino and one caramel version of the common gene would look caramel.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Under my allele theory for caramel and albino it would not be possible for normal looking het albinos to also be het caramel.

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Sir,

A couple of questions ...

1. Why would the simplest explanation for amel albinos appearing in caramel clutches (that the original NERD male is also het amel albino) not be good enough to the point that you feel the need to come up with an "alternate" theory? Wouldn't Occam's razor apply?

2. If there are numerous lines of caramel albinos (I can think of 7 of the top of my head), and as each of these lines are crossed to date they are all compatible, and only one of the caramel lines has EVER produced amel albinos, how could a so called "allele theory" have any legs when compared to the explanation that the original male caramel from one of the NERD caramel lines was also het amel albino?

-adam

Good questions.

I'm thinking it's a toss up as to which theory would be Occam's favorite.

1. On the one hand what are the chances of a NERD's wild bred male having a concentration of three mutant color genes (two copies of the caramel albino and one copy of the regular albino)? If each gene where randomly distributed in the wild at 1 in 100 then the chance of a homozygous caramel is 1 in 40,000 and the chances of also being het albino would bump it up to 1 in 4,000,000.

The allele theory only requires that male to have two mutant color genes, one regular albino and one caramel albino. Using the same estimation of the rarity of the genes in the wild and random distribution that combination in it's self would be a 1 in 40,000 shot. But you still have to factor in how unlikely it is that these two phonotypical different mutations happen to be of the same gene? There are lots of genes but when you narrow it down to genes that effect color and that also can have survivable mutations maybe the pool is small enough that as we move past the infancy of ball python mutation combinations we should be running into alleles all over the place (platy complex?). If there are fewer mutant survivable color genes than normals for every het albino in the wild then the allele theory is the less improbably explanation of the two.

2. Maybe NERD's caramel is the only import that wasn't homozygous caramel. True, the random distribution model would support it being equally likely to produce the albino + caramel allele pair version as often as the homozygous caramel version but perhaps this is evidence for localized inbreeding skewing the production of morphs with lower levels of wild hets than in the random distribution model above. Indecently, factoring in localized inbreeding of rarer hets would allow for albino and caramel being an allele pair in spite of a greater number of mutant survivable color gene to still be equally as probably as a homozygous caramel also being het albino. Maybe the caramel gene comes from an isolated breeding population where the albino gene is unusually rare so the chances of a paring of the two alleles in the wild is low compared to the chance of a homozygous for either allele by it’s self. If the albino gene wasn't in any of the other import caramels to start with it wouldn't be expected to show up in those lines. Most breeders have probably avoided crossing caramel into albino lines believing the less expensive albino phenotype would obscure the caramel appearance in the double homozygous (assuming they are separate genes). Still, you do have a point, by now there are enough unknown albino hets in the captive population I would expect albinos to start popping up in other caramel lines eventually if caramel and albino are alleles and you can't easily tell the mutant allele pair from a homozygous caramel.

Eventually someone will breed homozygous caramel to homozygous albino and report the results and then we'll finally know one way or the other. If I where selling het caramels I would want to know as soon as possible.

"If each gene where randomly distributed in the wild at 1 in 100 then the chance of a homozygous caramel is 1 in 40,000 and the chances of also being het albino would bump it up to 1 in 4,000,000."

Actually it might be rarer than that, someone check my math here.

If albino and caramel are separate genes inherited independently (no linking - on different chromosomes) and each occurs randomly at 1 in 100 then the odds of a 1 in 100 het albino pairing with a 1 in 100 het caramel to produce a random double het would be 1 in 10,000 for the pairing and only 1 in 4 of the offspring getting both genes so 1 in 40,000.

Now the odds of that 1 in 40,000 double het randomly pairing with a 1 in 100 het caramel would be the 1 in 4,000,000 but the odds of producing a homozygous caramel that is also het albino from that pairing would be 1 in 4 for the homozygous caramel part and 1 in 2 for the het albino part so 1 in 8 total to produce the homozygous caramel het albino times the 1 in 4,000,000 for the pairing so ends up being a 1 in 32,000,000 snake.

Of course the random pairing assumption could be wrong but as pointed out localized inbreeding might actually favor the allele theory.

However, something still doesn't look quite right. Should I not be factoring in the offspring production part of the odds? Is it only 1 in 1,000,000 for the combination of three 1 in 100 genes? Explain why if this is the right way to figure please I’m too tired to be sure which is correct right now. Still pretty darn rare with either calculation and which theory is more rare still comes down to if it’s more likely for a random wild animal to be het albino or for caramel and albino to be alleles.

In theory I'm a genius.:P ;)

Oh by the way Randy, to create a theory you have to run tests and have solid scientific evidence after several trials...not just some random thoughts you call "theory". I sir call that an empty theory. The wild caught adults are a crapshoot when it comes to the morph game...there may be something there, but most times not.

-Jason