What Is This Little Guy????

So just to confirm, normals and pastels (i.e. normals as far as both mojave and special are concerned) have been produced by crystals?

If that's the case, and we can exclude the possibility that some genetic specials could pass for normals, then that means that mojave and special are different genes (not just different mutations of the same gene). This would mean that your current clutch could include homozygous specials that are also mojave.

The basic question comes down to if crystal is a combo of two mutations of different genes that just happen to have a cool interaction like pastel and cinnamon in pewter or is it a combo of two different mutations of the same gene like say phantom and lesser to make karma (or it also looks like lesser and hidden to make platy). A crystal producing a true normal (i.e. not a very subtle special) would answer this question on the side of crystal being like pewter and not karma.

I wouldn't really say that either explanation was more straight forward than the other. How mutations of two different genes like pastel and cinnamon combine to make pewter which seems more than the sum of the parts is surprising to me.

Randy,
This is the first clutch that I have hatched sired by a Crystal male... He just happened to be a Pastel Crystal!:P
I guess only other breeding will see if a normal is produced by a Crystal sire...

Ok, that changes everything, I guess we had a miscommunication there. Until a crystal produces a normal we can't rule out the special gene being a different mutant allele of the same gene as mojave.

Another good test will be what the two light animals from this clutch produce. If either are males and you can spare to breed them to a normal it will be interesting if they can reproduce crystals that way or not.

If special and mojave are alleles (along with lesser and phantom and Vin Russo and latte) then these two must be homozygous specials given they look different from crystal and wouldn’t have room for a mojave version of the same gene. If that's the case they will produce 100% special (or in the case of the presumed pastel one those specials would each have a 50% chance of also being pastel).

But, if special is not a mutation of the same gene as mojave then it's possible one or both of these is homozygous special and also mojave and you could produce crystal breeding it to a normal.

I know it could go either way but without a normal from a crystal yet to prove me wrong I'm back leaning to the allele idea. Of course it will be whatever it will be and you will soon breed enough crystals to know for sure one way or the other. I don't think it would be at all a bad thing if this does turn out to be an allele of the white snake group. It certainly has distinct characteristics and in a way the alleles are easier to predict. There is only room for two versions of the same gene, one from each parent. It's just that we don't yet have as much experience in that area as with combos of unrelated morphs.

The problem is that if a crystal breeding doesn't produce a normal (or a crystal bred to a normal) soon to disprove the allele theory it's very hard to really prove the theory. It's sort of like the homozygous spider. You can't really prove it's impossible just because it hasn't been reported yet. It only takes one to disprove the theory but no agreement on how many misses to prove it.