cheap but cool morph?

Here is a het for the spider mutation:

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...erMaleof13.jpg

If spider is ever proven dominant we are going to need to start calling them hets and homozygous spiders to distinguish the two.

Is the existence of Het. Spiders debated because they are co-dominate and nearly always produce phenotypical animals as if they were homozygus? I'm still learning.

What I'm thinking of doing once I get into morphs is buying a pastel and a spider and breeding them to make bumblebees/killerbees. I've fell in love with this morph. Maybe this is something you should think about bjfoste1. both pastel's and spiders seem to be pretty inexpensive morphs and bumblebees/killer bees look awesome!

Austin Smith

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Originally Posted by Austin Smith

Is the existence of Het. Spiders debated because they are co-dominate and nearly always produce phenotypical animals as if they were homozygus?

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It's debated because most ball python people first learned about genetics from recessive morphs so believe het means normal looking gene carrier or something like that. Really heterozygous means having an unmatched pair of versions/alleles of whatever gene you are talking about. If the mutation is either co-dominant or completely dominant then the hets don't look normal.

Spiders nearly always produce about half and half phenotypic spiders when bred to normals which is expected for hets. They have an unmatched pair of spider genes and about half the time they pass on the mutant version and about half the time the normal version.

FYI het also doesn't mean half way to something else. A pastel is heterozygous for the pastel mutation; it technically isn't heterozygous for super pastel. If say pinstripe turned out to be completely dominant you would still have heterozygous pinstripes even though they looked just like the homozygous pinstripes (i.e. the definition of dominant) and it wouldn’t affect the het status that there was no visibly different super pinstripe. I don't know if pinstripe is dominant or co-dominant, it's just an example of a candidate that might still turn out to be the first proven dominant ball python morph.

I wish someone would do more digging into the Super Spider myth... it has to be possible. Genetics says it has to be possible: breed two hets together and you get hets and homos. So, unless the homo form of a spider is genetically defective, it has to happen someday.


But, I digress... that's off topic and another thread!

Point of THIS thread: chances are, if you buy from the best, you'll get the best! :D

You can check craigslist for gems. I saw a spider female for $300 once. You probably won't get a baby though.

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Originally Posted by ladywhipple02

I wish someone would do more digging into the Super Spider myth... it has to be possible. Genetics says it has to be possible

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Yes, but for proper verification, we need a bp genome map, and specific test for the spider alleles. Without that, the best we can do is to infer the homozygous version existence through extensive breeding.

your best bet to get a cheaper than normal morph would be to find the next reptile show in your area and check it out. go the first day and check everything out. then wait till the last day the show is in town and see whats left. most breeders dont want to go home with any animals so they will go low. dont take the first offer. mojave is a sweet morph that are getting more common so you could prob find one a little cheaper than normal.

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Originally Posted by ladywhipple02

I wish someone would do more digging into the Super Spider myth... it has to be possible. Genetics says it has to be possible: breed two hets together and you get hets and homos. So, unless the homo form of a spider is genetically defective, it has to happen someday.

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Well, there is a significant possibility that the spider allele is, to a degree, defective. Adam once posted that ALL spiders have some degree of spinning, which most would assume it's the spider allele that's causing it. It would seem (to me) the homozygous spider is fatal. We can, however, only make assumptions since we don't really know what spinning is. It could be degraded motor skills, or even more serious, perhaps causing a deformity in the part of the brain that controls motor skills.

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

Yes, but for proper verification, we need a bp genome map, and specific test for the spider alleles. Without that, the best we can do is to infer the homozygous version existence through extensive breeding.

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IMHO, with the length of time the spider has been around, and absolutely no cases of a proven homozygous form of the spider, I think we can safely assume, for whatever reason, a homozygous spider simply isn't possible. To a degree I hope I'm wrong, but given the obvious issues (spinning) with spiders I have mixed feelings about producing them.

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

Well, there is a significant possibility that the spider allele is, to a degree, defective. Adam once posted that ALL spiders have some degree of spinning, which most would assume it's the spider allele that's causing it. It would seem (to me) the homozygous spider is fatal. We can, however, only make assumptions since we don't really know what spinning is. It could be degraded motor skills, or even more serious, perhaps causing a deformity in the part of the brain that controls motor skills.

IMHO, with the length of time the spider has been around, and absolutely no cases of a proven homozygous form of the spider, I think we can safely assume, for whatever reason, a homozygous spider simply isn't possible. To a degree I hope I'm wrong, but given the obvious issues (spinning) with spiders I have mixed feelings about producing them.

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I think that with the length of time the spider has been around, we would see a lot of cases of high in-egg fatality rate if this was the case.

There's a whole other post on the possibility of Super Spiders: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t=super+spider