Hets w/visual traits/ Breeders opinions

How many breeders out there have noticed a trend with certain hets looking different from normals? Something a trained eye can pick out? For instance.. All the het caramels I have seen seem to have more blushing and lighter eyes. Het pieds often have railroad tracks and darker markings.

And the most curious one of all.. I know a breeder who can pick out a het clown 100% of the time if given a choice between normals and het clowns. This is something he actually does at shows to test his self. They always have a lower scale count and more of a rough scaled look along the spine. Kind of like the look of a pinstripes scales. Not to mention pastel het clowns almost always have connecting head stripes making a circle around the back of the head. Like a super enchi.

I know this cant be used to positively identify any het but how many of you have noticed a visual difference with your hets? This is just to see how common of an occurance this is. Years ago breeders were looking for subtle similarities when pairing up "normals" to discover more recessive traits after all.

I've noticed het clowns tend to make morphs and normals look "better." When we have for example pastels p.h. clown the brighter, nicer looking pastels prove out a lot more often than "normal" pastels.

I have to agree while not a sure way of picking them I think some traits do alter the look of their het offspring. Het pieds are the best example. IMO

Het pieds tend to have a more "melty" pattern.

BHB lines of het clowns tend to be high yellow and reduced pattern.

Huh.. Im going to have to compare some more notes with my own hets. This is one of those things where im going to end up taking more pictures of the hets that I own and compare them to other balls het for the same gene. Things like this really interest me.

Has anyone else ever noticed the scale difference for het clowns? I didnt notice it until it was brought to my attention. Then I was in the snake room comparing all the snakes scales LOL!

Oh and Mike at outback.. I too have noticed the het clowns seem to add something to the offspring when they are bred to normals or pastels etc..

I think the only one I haven't seen any visual traits for is the regular albino.

Years ago I read some threads about some het ghosts shedding clear like homozygous ghosts. So when I picked up my het ghost male from a breeder with a fairly large ghost project it happened to be cleaning day so he went through his cages and sure enough found several of his hets had clear patternless sheds. The het male I bought did have pattern in his shed but was rather bright. I bred him once and almost exactly half of the babies where noticeably brighter than the other half. Unfortunately only one of the bright ones was female. She was the only one I kept and bred but sure enough she proved het ghost. So, not much of a sample size but maybe het ghosts tend to shed clear and/or be brighter colored animals.

I'd love to hear more about the het clowns. I own a huge 1996 VPI produced female presumed normal that is nice and bright colored.

http://snakemorphs.com/images/f96nvpiMed.jpg

I suppose that was way too early for possible het clown FEMALES to have been sold as normals but she did produce a very interesting looking daughter once that looked a lot like some unusual het clowns that where posted. Just on the chance I sent her off this winter for her 2nd attempt at breeding with a clown male (no eggs the first time, 2003 I think it was). She has been a sporadic producer but has produced as many as 13 eggs the few times she decided to go so if both she and the long time bachelor clown male both feel like it this year I should know one way or the other.

All of my het clowns are bright as hatchlings but seem to darken to more normal looking as they grow. The main thing I have noticed is that all of mine that have proven out have a strong white outline around the alien heads in the pattern. When I proved out my poss hets this season every one that I thought would prove out did end up proving.
Here is an example of one that proved out last season.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...1/DSCN3257.jpg

Yes! And look at its scales along the spine. How they are bigger and spaced far apart in areas. My 2 het clowns look exactly like that. I just went back and looked at them again and they even have a few sporadic white scales along the spine, the same thick white outline along the markings and lots of white flames coming from the belly. Both of mine are in shed but i'll post pics soon.

This is something we have always looked for in hets and its always been fun chosing poss hets we believe will prove out.

Every Het Hypo we own or have produced has a spot on the head, not always a lighter overall look but this spot is always prominent in the middle of the head. We have also proved out poss. hets that we believed would prove by the head spot, have two more poss hets to go that look the same. Most het Caramels we have seen have alot of blushing and high golds, we picked a poss. het out of a group a while back by these marks and hope to prove her out this year. Het Pieds do seem to have melting patterns and seem to have darker patterns, train tracks appear on all of ours but we have seen proven adults without them so its just a common thing but not for sure. We have actually noticed that Het. Albinos seem to have a rougher skin and have a harder time shedding than normals and other morphs, not sure if this is always the case but it seems prominent within our hets. Now I would guess most of these are just line bred traits as all hets come from one or two original animals from Africa and are bred back together, so it will appear stronger in some animals, but none the less a sign. As for ringers in het pieds, I believe this is the same effect as a paradox and the gene is dominant in these skin cells allowing the pied to express itself within this small space. Its actually believed that Paradox animals are almost always Hets. and not the Homozygous form, as there was a Paradox Albino bred to a Homozygous Albino and hets were produced. Usually normal is a dominant allele to one Recessive allele but I believe in these cases in the areas of paradox the skin cells had a somewhat chimera effect when the skin cells were produced, but the overall genome of the animal was still a heterozygous recessive.
Long post but throwing out our experience with these markers and just letting out some loose thoughts.
Hope this is what you were looking for, its late and I may have screwed up somewhere with wording but hopefully you get the General idea.

This is my 50% het clown male, Can anyone see anything that indicates he is a het? He does have that bigger scale thing along his spine.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...thers001-2.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...thers003-1.jpg