Proving Dominant Traits

So this is going to be possibly a beaten topic in other areas, but I did not see any imediate information on this available, so I thought I'd poke a dangerous bear and see what everyone thinks on this matter.

We tend to understate certain examples of dominant traits and need to better classify what we know and understand as dominant and how it truly relates back in the genetic community.

The Basics:

If we look at a Simple Dominance outcome you can say that the spider gene may look something like Xx and normal would of course be xx. Now, having that X makes it show the trait, spider. When we do a simple cross between a spider and a normal we would get the genetic ratios of half Xx and half xx. This is fine and dandy, and is where most people are fine with the concept.

The story of two hets:

Most of you should understand the concept of Het vs Homozygous, and when we refer to simple dominance we know that Hets and Homo individuals should be a represenative of this trait, whatever we may be dealing with, for my example, spider. So in order for us to consider spider dominant and not co-dominant, we need to do a cross between 2 adults that are both spider, this will theoretically be crossing Xx and Xx (again considering this was a first generation production for each, and again assuming simple dominance). Here's what the genetic wizard says about that . . .


Now, if we look at the combos of genes we would be getting a little bit different story, it would look more like 25% Normal, 25% Homozygous (XX), and 50% Het (Xy).

The truth and point:

So we've now broken it down pretty plain and simple, but I challenge you now to cross back EVERY spider produced by that previous clutch and cross it with a normal. In theory, at least 25% should be the Homozyous form, so when you find that individual, it will only be able to pass on an X rather than an x, thus continuing the spider gene.

The problem is, you won't be able to prove it, and the reason is simply that MANY of the morphs we associate as dominant, are actually co-dominant with Homozygous lethality in its super form.

Many people that seek out communities like this one, need to be properly educated about genetics if they want to pursue makin morphs. We also need to be careful about how we deem morphs when considering them for dominant vs co-dominant. For it to truly be dominant, you would still be able to get a super form, though it may not phenotypically be different than the het form, it would genotypically be vastly differnet and thus proveable. Think of a Blue-eyed Lucy (say lesser x lesser). If you breed that beautiful snake to a normal, you will get 100% Lesser offspring because Lucy can only pass on 1 gene. Co-dominant in its true nature usually works with genes. We can consider Lesser Co-dominant, because its super form is controlled by different alleles at the same Loci. However, things like Cinamon need NOT be referred to as Co-dominant, because our knowledge only demonstrates one known allele that can produce a super form, but at the same time we can't just refer to it as dominant because the super form is a different phenotype than it is in its heterozygous form!

Hopefully this doesn't confuse anybody, but perhaps encourages a beter look into this interesting subject. There are MANY factors at play when we mess with genetics and mutations, why do you think that Super Cinny are so prone to kinking? We're not just messing with the color of a snake, but we're also messing with its genetic make up that may very well be controlling something else. One last example would be Jaguar in Carpet pythons. We know that Jag is a form of Het Leacustic, when you produce a super form, it will die before it reaches its first shed, or early on in the stages of development due to poor lung development amoung other factors (Muton, 2011).

Cheers to those who read this fully and appreciate genetics for the science it really is!

2 questions.

1) For anyone to say that the super form of spider is lethal, then won't there need to be bad eggs in a clutch of spider x spider? If all the eggs are good and all of them hatch (for multiple generations) can you not then consider the possibility of the super spider to NOT be lethal?

2) Can you not say that a cinnamon is a co-Dom because also black pastels create the same super, and are x compatible? In the lesser example, I understood that you were saying that Mojave and butters also affect the same gene therefore lessers are a co-Dom? I may be wrong about my understanding of that paragraph.

Anyways good write up and I enjoyed the read!


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Super cinnies will come out kinked if you inbreed too much. Thats why i got mine from different lines. BHB is rumored to have a dominant pin (super form) in which when bred to a normal it produces all pins.

1) If you don't get any slugs that's fine. BUT my point is if you produce a theoretical Homozygous form, when you breed it in that next generation to a normal, you will get 100% spider since it would only be able to pass on the dominant gene since it has two copies. This has been challenged before with a lot of dominant morphs, and yet it has not been proven.

2) Yes, Cinny and Black-pastel can produce the super form I suppose, I have not seen that complex proved out though I may have missed it. If that's the case then Cinny is indeed Co-dominate and that term can be held true.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Mike - If they do that's impressive, but will be next to impossible to prove out, it may very well be a weird situation with that possible super pin. Pinstripe x pinstripe is also one of those lethal combos when you cross into the super form. Otherwise we would have people selling morphs as "Proven Homozygous Pinstripe" etc. etc.

I know that cinny x cinny make a chocolate brown snake. Black pastel x black pastel make a dark almost black snake. A cinny x black pastel makes a halfway black/brown snake. That's all I know. I don't know what the babies would be from a bp x cinny tho. I would assume half and half but I have no idea.


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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

2) Yes, Cinny and Black-pastel can produce the super form I suppose, I have not seen that complex proved out though I may have missed it. If that's the case then Cinny is indeed Co-dominate and that term can be held true.

Glad you enjoyed it!

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A cinny x bp will give you a 25% chance at the super form which is an 8 ball. An 8 ball bred to a normal will give you 50% cinny and 50% bp. (according to WOBP).

That doesnt make sense to me. I would think it would be 25% normal, 25% cinny, 25% bp, 25% 8 ball...

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

Mike - If they do that's impressive, but will be next to impossible to prove out, it may very well be a weird situation with that possible super pin. Pinstripe x pinstripe is also one of those lethal combos when you cross into the super form. Otherwise we would have people selling morphs as "Proven Homozygous Pinstripe" etc. etc.

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Yea true. Like i said it was just a rumour i heard on here one time before. Im not saying they do or dont;)

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Originally Posted by interloc

I know that cinny x cinny make a chocolate brown snake. Black pastel x black pastel make a dark almost black snake. A cinny x black pastel makes a halfway black/brown snake. That's all I know. I don't know what the babies would be from a bp x cinny tho. I would assume half and half but I have no idea.


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The shades all vary from brown to black. Ive seen jet black super cinnies before.

Shoot, give us a harder question than that! :D

The definition of Codominance from Cornell is this just as a reference:

Mode of inheritance in which phenotypic expression of two different alleles occurs in the heterozygote as a result of neither allele being dominant over the other.

Again, in relationship to pythons, we can only consider it codominance If and only If muliple alleles can contribute without effecting the other. So in looking at it under a different light, any complex can be considered co-dominant even if they are not on the same loci and contribute to a super form. However, the main issue at hand is going to be dominance in this post, and rectifying that the super forms of MANY of the morphs out there are in fact lethal in their homozygous state.

Spider and Pin in our examples up to this point.

That doesnt make sense to me. I would think it would be 25% normal, 25% cinny, 25% bp, 25% 8 ball...

That makes sense. Because the super would can only pass on one gene to the babies. And if both bp and cinny are acting on the same gene then it makes perfect sense.



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Originally Posted by Mike41793

A cinny x bp will give you a 25% chance at the super form which is an 8 ball. An 8 ball bred to a normal will give you 50% cinny and 50% bp. (according to WOBP).

That doesnt make sense to me. I would think it would be 25% normal, 25% cinny, 25% bp, 25% 8 ball...

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If you breed any super to a normal, you will never get a normal, because they will contribute on of the dominate genes, be it the C or BP gene from the super. The reason this is is because they are located on the same loci (location on the chromosome) so when it goes through its events and the chromtids are formed, it can ONLY pass on one of the genes, not both. It's different than if you take a Caramel Jaguar and bred it to a normal you would get 25% Caramel Jags because both of these genes are true co-dominates with the Homo Jag being lethal homo.

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

If you breed any super to a normal, you will never get a normal, because they will contribute on of the dominate genes, be it the C or BP gene from the super. The reason this is is because they are located on the same loci (location on the chromosome) so when it goes through its events and the chromtids are formed, it can ONLY pass on one of the genes, not both. It's different than if you take a Caramel Jaguar and bred it to a normal you would get 25% Caramel Jags because both of these genes are true co-dominates with the Homo Jag being lethal homo.

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Yea but my point is that the cinny and bp are two diff morprhs yet they can make a super that produces no normals. Idk how much they differ then if thats obviously the case.

I can't believe incomplete dominance hasn't been brought up yet.

Edit:

I will contribute to the discussion by just compiling past conversations -

Discussion on homozygous spider

The world's eyes are opened! to the truth that is incomplete dominance

Incomplete dominance: inheritance in which an active allele does not entirely compensate for an inactive allele

Pastel is incomplete dom as a reference point :)

The answers to the poll are not relevant, because it's impossible for anyone to accurately answer it.

1) No one knows exactly what's happening with the spider gene. We know that spiders and normals are produced from a spider X normal or spider X spider breeding. We know that no 'super' form has been produced--there are no homozygous spiders. We do not know why.

2) The percentage is the chance per egg that the animal will be something. It's not the percentage of the clutch that will be something. (For example, if you breed a pastel to a normal, each egg has a 50% chance of being a pastel--this doesn't mean half of the clutch will be pastels. It's only a chance. The first clutch I produced contained 13 eggs, and 11 of them hatched into pastels, with only 2 normals!)

The only way to solve this would be to get as many spider breeders as possible to start keeping statistics on their spider X spider clutches--detailed ones.
These should include the number of eggs in each clutch that go bad (if any), and the number of spiders versus normals that hatch. The larger the quantity of information we have, the closer we'll get to the true probability, which may reveal whether the super-spiders die in the egg, or are mysteriously absent with all breedings producing 50/50 chance per egg.

The problem is, people rarely breeder spider X spider. It's far from uncommon to lose an egg or two during incubation, so folks would tend to ignore it. Because it's a percentage chance per egg, of course some spider X spider clutches would have all good eggs, even if it IS homozygous lethal.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Yea but my point is that the cinny and bp are two diff morprhs yet they can make a super that produces no normals. Idk how much they differ then if thats obviously the case.

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It's because they are two different mutations of the same gene (basically--yes, I know it's more complicated than that, but this will help make it understandable).

If you breed a cinnamon to a normal, it can pass on either the cinnamon gene, or the normal gene, right? The baby will then get a normal gene from its mother as well--she can only pass on a normal gene, because she has 2 of them. The baby gets one set of genes from mom, and one from dad--now it has a pair.

If you breed a cinny to a black pastel, and the cinny passes on its morph gene, and so does the black pastel, then the baby has one cinny morph gene, and one black pastel morph gene...but those two genes are in the same spot, so even though they are different mutations, the baby does not have a normal copy of that gene--just two different mutant copies, get it?

So when you breed it, it can only pass on one mutant copy, or the other mutant copy, because it doesn't have a normal copy.
As a result, each baby has a 50% chance to be cinnamon, and a 50% chance to be black pastel. It can't be both, because it only inherits one copy of that gene from the bp/cinny super.

Now, if you have a bumblebee, it has one copy of a pastel gene, and one normal gene in one spot, and then one copy of a spider gene, and normal gene in a DIFFERENT spot. So, it can pass on a pastel gene or normal gene in one spot, and a spider gene or normal gene in the other spot. Because they aren't mutations of the same gene, it can pass both the pastel and spider gene to its offspring, so it can have bumblebee offspring.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

The only way to solve this would be to get as many spider breeders as possible to start keeping statistics on their spider X spider clutches--detailed ones.
These should include the number of eggs in each clutch that go bad (if any), and the number of spiders versus normals that hatch.

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You will never get those statistics of course because almost nobody breeds Spider x Spider because its lethal!

There has never been a single ball morph thats proven to be Dominant, EVER.

There are several lethal genes however, but since that is generally bad for business, they simply call them "dominant"

If spiders or pins were actually dominant there would be quite a few homozygous animals floating around at this point, but there are none.

I know that there are many here who really want to believe that people are honest about these things, but one need not look far to see ample evidence to the contrary.

How long was the spider Nuero issue kept secret?
How long did it take for people to admit that female caramels are nearly sterile
How about female Deserts? there are still people selling them in KS as a good "investment"

the truth is that when morphs have negative side effects, the response is almost always to suppress the information to keep the money rolling in.


Sad but true.

Nick

Thanks for Chiming in Nick, our conversation recently got my mind rolling on the genetics stuff, and it really needs a better scientific approach so that more people are familiar with what they are breeding and generating.

And the poll is to simply see where people fall in a mindset of their understanding, why its a poll, not just a straight quesion with a proper answer.Look at the results and you'll see people are still voting 75% which is obviously not the case, and is the argument for this topic to be posted.

Some things on my mind after skimming this thread.....

Spider is lethal eh? prove it.... that's right no one has yet. So can we stop saying it's lethal and just say the truth.... we just don't know (OMG THE HORROR!!!). At least until we have something other than "I don't see one", get some data together. "but it's hard to get data and I don't want to waste my precious females, time, rack space, and money".....that doesn't prove anything, so we still don't know.

So poll answer is assuming we know whats going on with the spider gene. If it's a dominant gene, then it is 75%. If it's lethal then it's 66% (we truncate numbers in this hobby).

Also no one proved out a dominant trait? Well for starters BHB did years ago, Pinstripe is dominant. 27 eggs all pinstripes... unless you want to believe that brain hit the 1/134,217,728 odds that a het pinstripe did it. So theres a 0.0000007% chance pinstripe is not dominant... If that's not proof, tell me what is.

Vin russo imported a homozygous Congo. So it only took him a few breedings to prove that his original animal was homozygous.

Ralph davis proved out the daddy gene, we all know breed a platinum to a platinum, you get 3 possible outcomes, homozygous lesser, het lesser/het daddy, homozygous daddy. well he hit on the one that wasn't a BEL or platty... so whats left? homozygous daddy, that looks just like the heterozygous daddy.

also to the OP this was my solution....

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Unproven Dominant

You might be asking "Why have I never herd of this?" That would be because I made it up. I feel there is a need to differentiate between dominant morphs and the ones that are on the waiting list, which I call unproven dominant. A dominant morph has a visual change in the heterozygous form and the exact same change in the homozygous form. I define an unproven dominant as a morph having an unknown homozygous form. It might be a Incomplete Dominant/Co-Dominant morph that just hasn't proved out yet. It also could be a dominant morph. So what does it take to prove a dominant morph is in fact a dominant morph? I only know of two ways, statistics and complexes.

We will start with breeding a Pinstripe to another Pinstripe. The offspring statistically will be 25% Homozygous Pinstripe, 50% Heterozygous Pinstripe, and 25% Normal. Now since Pinstripe is a dominant morph, the homozygous and heterozygous forms look exactly the same. We are unable to tell them apart, so what we have is all the Pinstripes being 33% possible homozygous. 25% homozygous to 50% heterozygous which is a 1:2 ratio or 33% homozygous:66% heterozygous.

Now unlike possible recessive hets which can be proven out through producing visuals, we need to use statistics to prove homozygous dominant morphs. When the homozygous Pinstripe is bred, it will always produce Pinstripes. Once there have been enough eggs of all Pinstripes to call it something other than luck, you have proven it homozygous. One normal offspring will quickly prove the animal to be heterozygous. How many eggs you need to see is completely up for debate, but to give you the odds of a heterozygous Pinstripe producing all Pinstripes, here is a little chart.

Chance of heterozygous producing all morphs
I'm not sure where the community wants to draw the line, but things are looking good after 15 eggs if you ask me. To sum it up, it takes a lot of time, resources, and good record keeping to prove a single gene to be dominant.

If the unproven dominant gene is part of a complex, it can easily be proven by breeding two of the same complex morphs together. For example Daddy Gene is part of the same complex as Lesser Platinum. A Daddy Gene and Lesser Platinum sitting together makes a Platinum. Breed two Platinums togther and your left with straight forward odds 25% BEL, 50% Platinum, and 25% Homozygous Daddy Gene. Each of them are entirely different looking morphs, BEL being an all white snake with blue eyes, Platinums looking like hypo Lesser Platinum, and homozygous Daddy Gene looking just like the heterozygous Daddy Gene. All you have to do is hit that 25% chance and it makes it easy to say that the Daddy Gene is dominant.

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also if this turns into arguing scientific terms vs terms used in the hobby, I'm just stating now I will not be participating. Feel free to search previous threads about mine and many other hobbyist opinion on it.

Your free to believe whatever you like but this stuff is not magical or even mysterious and there is a reason why nobody breeds spider X spider or Pin X pin etc. You are also making the assumption that everyone has always been honest, which most people realize has not been the case either.

Hiding behind the "we dont know" is a tad convenient, as with a lethal gene that dies early in development, the proof you demand would be impossible to get. Over the years when this argument comes up I usually find it a amusing that those who argue that Spider is dominant avoid doing that pairing in their own collections.

We now have a whole group of genes, that when paired result in severely damaged or dead combos (spider, woma, hg woma, sable, champ etc) and of these the spider is by far the MOST damaged in heterozygous form. So even though we know that the spider gene is clearly lethal in several combos, AND there is a complete lack of any evidence for a viable homozygous form. I guess I dont understand your relentless optimism on the subject.

On the issue of Dominant genes, I hardly think the "daddy" gene counts as it looks normal in both heterozygous and homozygous form. On the congo, can you even define what a "congo" looks like.... me neither.
Your then left with one supposed homozygous pin when there should certainly be many more than one. call me a skeptic I guess.

My thoughts on that as well with BHBs claim is it could've been a money game as well. Brian found the original pin and proved it out. It would be better for business to find a "dominate" trait, rather than another lethal homozygous. I'll email brian and ask him why he hasn't proven out another homozygous. It is more likely that a) ONE survived as Homozygous or b) he did hit those odds of all pinstripes.

And like Nick Said, we can't hide behind we don't know, because we do, we see clutch reports, and if someone somewhere had hit the homozygous version we would know! its not 1/16 chance, its 1/4 when you breed the two together, Brian at BHB Im positive has breeding data for pin to pin with what only ONE possible case that it proved out to be possibly homo? What about the other clutches from that individual? Why only quote one clutch? That's odd because Brian would breed multiple generations out of that because he could produce a TON of pins easy. . . So forgive my speculation on the matter, not trying to insult anyone with this topic, this is high school level thought concepts, we just need to think of it realistically.

Also concerning your het odds, how many people breed het pied to het pied and end up with usually a pied in the first generation of the cross? The probability seems off in your table . . . Not exactly sure what your were trying to prove out, because if you know anything about probability each egg is independent, it rolls its own dice, you have the same probability of getting every egg Homo or every egg Het or every egg normal. SAME. But each egg has the same variable of probability, 25%, 25%, 50%, so your chart does little to prove anything . . .

Love the different opinions and everyone's ability to play nicely in this thread (so far)!! I won't say much as to avoid beating too many dead horses but I will say the following:

1) As to the homozygous spider, we truly do not know, and to say otherwise is incorrect, plain and simple.

2) No one has mentioned that a lethal combination doesn't have to be a slug egg, which suprises me! In the case of Spiders - If it is lethal when sperm first combines with an egg then no egg will be laid, slug or otherwise, as the female can simply absorb the egg back into her body and make good use of the nutrients on the remaining healthy eggs!! If sperm isn't even able to fertilize an egg with the same allele(prezygotic exclusion) then a sperm with a normal set of DNA could do the job instead, producing a viable spider egg.

While you may not agree, keep in mind that my BS is in a biological field and that I have taken both genetics and biological statistics at the college level. As a result I feel like what I have to say should hold some wieght. Whether you agree with what I said or not doesn't matter to me either way, I just wanted to weigh in.

To the OP - thanks for a thought provoking post! It is by raising interesting questions that cause us to seek answers that ultimately broadens our knowledge base (so long as we are open to what we find, whether it is what we expected to find or not!) :)

1) We do know, we fail to acknowledge, if its not produceable, its lethal - why is it a unknown? People like BHB breed these things by the thousands, and keeps detailed records of all accounts. I'm positive he has the proof that it is lethal, but because its bad for business I think he isn't openly giving this information, but because he's not a bad guy and is interested in supporting the community, I promise he'd give it if he's directly asked for it. Remember the lack of evidence of a homozygous form proven out over multiple generations, is the proof.

2) This is true. We don't have to see slugs for there to have been infertile eggs that didn't even make it that far in the process.

Keeping records is one thing, going back and analyzing those records is something else. Analysis take time, and sometimes nobody gets around to doing it. It happens to the academics as well as breeders.

I don't see why people agonize over lethal genes. If you don't like the looks of the heterozygote, don't get it. If the homozygote dies before hatching, tough bananas for it, but everything dies sooner or later. Even if the heterozygote is less vigorous than the normal, breeding from the heterozygotes can produce better than average normals. Because the rest of the genetics has to be a bit better to offset the bad effect of the mutant gene.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

Your free to believe whatever you like but this stuff is not magical or even mysterious and there is a reason why nobody breeds spider X spider or Pin X pin etc. You are also making the assumption that everyone has always been honest, which most people realize has not been the case either.

Hiding behind the "we dont know" is a tad convenient, as with a lethal gene that dies early in development, the proof you demand would be impossible to get. Over the years when this argument comes up I usually find it a amusing that those who argue that Spider is dominant avoid doing that pairing in their own collections.

We now have a whole group of genes, that when paired result in severely damaged or dead combos (spider, woma, hg woma, sable, champ etc) and of these the spider is by far the MOST damaged in heterozygous form. So even though we know that the spider gene is clearly lethal in several combos, AND there is a complete lack of any evidence for a viable homozygous form. I guess I dont understand your relentless optimism on the subject.

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You are also assuming that everyone involved in any spider project must be dishonest. Can I ask, what is the motivation to be dishonest in the case of a lethal homozygous spider at this point? Seriously... Do you think big time breeders will "take a hit" by stating that homo spider is lethal, and suddenly their $10,000 spiders that they've been selling left and right will suddenly only sell for around $150? Oh wait.. they already sell for that much. They already sell hetero spiders, and everybody still buys them, despite their potential flaws. They still remain popular base morphs and combos. Is there some business gain I'm missing, from "hiding the truth" about spiders?

The simple fact is that we don't KNOW. Evidence may point towards one direction, but until a project is done to specifically prove out that the homozygous spider is lethal or otherwise, we simply don't know. People aren't arguing that it isn't lethal, simply that we don't know for a fact. We have theories and evidence that suggest a conclusion, but do not prove a conclusion.


CORRELATION != CAUSATION, and until a proper "study" has been made, we don't know, we can only make educated guesses in the most probable direction. Take note of the following sentence really quickly: The former thought applies to 'both sides' of the debate. This is not an argument FOR homozygous spider being alive and healthy. It is an argument for proper procedure, and use of the scientific method.



As for why people aren't trying to prove homozygous spider, or any other perceived dominant morph:

To say that it's because people are afraid it is lethal, and that this contributes towards "proof" that people are being dishonest and therefore "proof" that spider is lethal...... well that's a fallacy and a half. My ONLY motivation for now wanting to get into a homozygous spider project is to provide evidence towards either conclusion - as I don't care whether homo spider is lethal or not, I just want people to stop saying they KNOW based off correlational data.

I feel another poll coming on, as I'd like to know how many people don't get into a homo spider project because of whether they think it's lethal and are afraid of wasting time. I wonder if people don't get into the project because it IS a waste of time, and by the time a homo spider would be proved out (or proved to be lethal) they could have produced several more spiders, and spider combos. The amount of resources and time needed to accurately record data on this topic, is limited to a very select number of breeders. The average hobbyist breeder doesn't have time, space, or resources to put into a project that has two basic outcomes:
1) a lethal homozygous spider, time wasted, other than to contribute to the "debate" on the topic.
2) a homozygous spider that can pass on spider to all of it's offspring. Neat... so now you can make sure every morph it's put to also has spider added... How many more spider combos could you have made in the process? Having a homozygous spider HANDED do you would maybe provide a benefit.. but going through the effort of producing one, is a considerable waste of time.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

Your free to believe whatever you like but this stuff is not magical or even mysterious and there is a reason why nobody breeds spider X spider or Pin X pin etc. You are also making the assumption that everyone has always been honest, which most people realize has not been the case either.

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nobody breeds dominant traits because of the time/money/proving out/ect. for a morph that looks exactly like the het. It's alot easier to breed two pastels together and say thats a homozygous pastel. All a homozygous dominant trait does is give you genetic powerhouse, but phenotypes is what makes money, as a big breeder, what are you going to go after? It only makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

Hiding behind the "we dont know" is a tad convenient, as with a lethal gene that dies early in development, the proof you demand would be impossible to get. Over the years when this argument comes up I usually find it a amusing that those who argue that Spider is dominant avoid doing that pairing in their own collections.

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yup we are hiding behind something... instead of assuming, how dare we. Ultra sound and follow egg development, if it dies early you will see it. It's not impossible, just difficult, time consuming, and a lot of record keeping. Also whos arguing it's dominant? Thats never been proven.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

We now have a whole group of genes, that when paired result in severely damaged or dead combos (spider, woma, hg woma, sable, champ etc) and of these the spider is by far the MOST damaged in heterozygous form. So even though we know that the spider gene is clearly lethal in several combos, AND there is a complete lack of any evidence for a viable homozygous form. I guess I dont understand your relentless optimism on the subject.

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Its no optimism or anything, I want evidence before we say something is fact, so far the evidence is lack of evidence. I'll stick with the truth of we don't know.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

On the issue of Dominant genes, I hardly think the "daddy" gene counts as it looks normal in both heterozygous and homozygous form. On the congo, can you even define what a "congo" looks like.... me neither.
Your then left with one supposed homozygous pin when there should certainly be many more than one. call me a skeptic I guess.

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het daddys and normals from the same clutch are easy to pick out, at least it was in the one clutch I saw. Subtle no doubt, I could never look at a snake and say, yes that is het daddy, but they are different. As for congo, brighter, and more yellow than a normal. Again it may be subtle, but still a dominant trait. You're grasping at straws to prove your point if you ask me... I'm sorry yes, there is dominant traits in the ball python world... OMG!

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

My thoughts on that as well with BHBs claim is it could've been a money game as well. Brian found the original pin and proved it out. It would be better for business to find a "dominate" trait, rather than another lethal homozygous. I'll email brian and ask him why he hasn't proven out another homozygous. It is more likely that a) ONE survived as Homozygous or b) he did hit those odds of all pinstripes.

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See above.... time, money, space, females, for animal that looks exactly the same... yea im on repeat.

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

And like Nick Said, we can't hide behind we don't know, because we do, we see clutch reports, and if someone somewhere had hit the homozygous version we would know! its not 1/16 chance, its 1/4 when you breed the two together, Brian at BHB Im positive has breeding data for pin to pin with what only ONE possible case that it proved out to be possibly homo? What about the other clutches from that individual? Why only quote one clutch? That's odd because Brian would breed multiple generations out of that because he could produce a TON of pins easy. . . So forgive my speculation on the matter, not trying to insult anyone with this topic, this is high school level thought concepts, we just need to think of it realistically.

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your not thinking of this as a business person, phenotypes sell. BTW if you didn't notice.... he does sell a ton of pins easy. Maybe here is another point you guys are missing. Ok I make my homozygous pinstripe, awesome. Now I want to mix it with another morph... the whole proving out process starts all over again, only way you can guarantee it is homozygous, is to breed 2x already proven homozygous together. so you can't mix in other morphs without starting the entire LONG process over again. again phenotypes sell. It's not like a normal het x het, theres a long process everytime.

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

Also concerning your het odds, how many people breed het pied to het pied and end up with usually a pied in the first generation of the cross? The probability seems off in your table . . . Not exactly sure what your were trying to prove out, because if you know anything about probability each egg is independent, it rolls its own dice, you have the same probability of getting every egg Homo or every egg Het or every egg normal. SAME. But each egg has the same variable of probability, 25%, 25%, 50%, so your chart does little to prove anything . . .

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the chart is breed a het to a normal, 50% chance each egg. and what are the chances of missing 50% 5 times? 10 times? 15 times? 20 times? 25 times? 27 times? refer to the chart and my above posts.

I know TSK is years and years into a spider X spider project. Their numbers aren't huge but they probably have by far the best records on the subject so if anyone here knows them maybe they can ask if they are ready to share. Does NERD or BHB even bother to keep records on everything? As a very small scale breeder I find it a nuisance and could easily see some of the big guys not bothering but of course don’t know any of them, just have a few old e-mails from TSK indicating they are records nuts. I just never had any reason not to believe BHB's report of the homozygous pinstripe because of the data he presented to back it up and even though NERD denied that spider was homozygous lethal years ago he didn't really present any data so I discounted it as meaning he just didn't see any dying hatchlings like with the woma/pearl. Anyway, I don't really want to get a 2nd spider and embark on the work to try to prove what might be unprovable for myself but could see getting my first pinstripe pair to try that one, maybe. Suppose at this point you would want some sort of homozygous pinstripe combo to make the project work economically and that complicates things.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

I know TSK is years and years into a spider X spider project. Their numbers aren't huge but they probably have by far the best records on the subject so if anyone here knows them maybe they can ask if they are ready to share. Does NERD or BHB even bother to keep records on everything? As a very small scale breeder I find it a nuisance and could easily see some of the big guys not bothering but of course don’t know any of them, just have a few old e-mails from TSK indicating they are records nuts. I just never had any reason not to believe BHB's report of the homozygous pinstripe because of the data he presented to back it up and even though NERD denied that spider was homozygous lethal years ago he didn't really present any data so I discounted it as meaning he just didn't see any dying hatchlings like with the woma/pearl. Anyway, I don't really want to get a 2nd spider and embark on the work to try to prove what might be unprovable for myself but could see getting my first pinstripe pair to try that one, maybe. Suppose at this point you would want some sort of homozygous pinstripe combo to make the project work economically and that complicates things.

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Would be awesome for someone to come out with some data on the spider. I'm quite surprised a big breeder would work on it, glad they are trying.


I also thought about shooting for a high end pinstripe pair and going from there..... its not economicly feasible imo, compared to using another morph that is not dominant. The glory of doing it and having a genetic powerhouse that no one else has and can't have for many years.... has a certain cool factor to it. I still might, just need to find the right pinstripe female... maybe something with some hypo in it to go with my lemonblast het hypo male....see what this year brings. :)

It's certainly a long hard project and IMHO with every expectation that it's unprovable. I could look through my old e-mails to get the details they sent me for the first few years but probably better if we can get an update direct from TSK. Just by memory it's only a few clutches of spider X spider and then years of raising up all the spider offspring. I think most or all of the first spiders where females too.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

I could never look at a snake and say, yes that is het daddy, but they are different.

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Im sorry but that statement is a complete contradiction, now who is grasping at straws!

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

Im sorry but that statement is a complete contradiction, now who is grasping at straws!

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I think what he meant was if you presented him with a single snake, he couldn't say for certain if it was het daddy. But if there were 2 snakes side by side and one was het daddy and one was normal, he could tell the difference. No need to jump on somebody because you didn't understand a statement.


Sent from my poo fone using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Anatopism

You are also assuming that everyone involved in any spider project must be dishonest.

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This is a complete misinterpretation of what I said. Obviously not everyone with spiders is dishonest. And I agree its pointless to mis-represent them now as they are $100 snakes. However it was not all that many years ago that these snakes were $15-18,000 each and that kind of money does provide sufficient motive.

So far 100% of the evidence supports that its a lethal gene and no evidence suggests its dominant. I will go with the preponderance of evidence on this one. You guys can remain optimistic if you want! Sure you can hold out forever I suppose, and demand some sort of impossible to attain proof, but really as has been pointed out, who cares.

You guys are also subjecting this morph to a higher standard of "proof" than any other. The statistical proof that you seek is conveniently impossible to obtain, yet you make no similar demands of statistical proof for any other morph.

I have a new morph (true story) that I proved out two years ago, I went for the super twice this year and in both cases there was no obvious homozygote, yet in each clutch (5 eggs and 6 eggs respectively) there were fertile eggs that died halfway through incubation, one in the first clutch and 2 in the second. I am well aware that its possible that I have a lethal gene here and am trying again with three females this season.

By your logic I should just sell the new morph as Dominant since I cant absolutely prove otherwise? If I get the same results this season (1 female just ovulated) and I lose roughly 25% of my fertile eggs at around 30 days of incubation (again), I still will not have "proven" anything, even though the answer becomes increasingly obvious.

By your logic, I cant say anything with certainty, yet to call it dominant when all the evidence suggests otherwise seems blatantly dishonest.


Nick

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

So far 100% of the evidence supports that its a lethal gene and no evidence suggests its dominant.

The statistical proof that you seek is conveniently impossible to obtain, yet you make no similar demands of statistical proof for any other morph.

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There is no evidence to suggest that spider is homozygous lethal, at least not that I am aware of, and the statistical proof is not impossible to gain. Here is what I wrote in another thread:

"Until someone breeds and keeps records of spiderXspider pairings and then attempts to prove out the offspring, no one will be able to form an educated opinion. If people have kept these records as some suggest (and I'm sure some people have) then I would like to see them so that I could interpret them for myself. If somone could compile the data with a sample size (n) of 200 or more, and the probability (p) of producing a homozygous spider of <0.05 or lower, then I would be inclined to belive that it is improbable that any homozygous spiders exist.

Whether they exist or not, no one has proven that the responsible gene is homozygous lethal, at least not as far as I know. There could be other things that have prevented a homozygous form from being produced yet, and there could be some out there that aren't being bred or haven't been "discovered." Maybe they are sterile and can't reproduce? Is sterility common among 33% of spiders that result from a spiderXspider pairing? Short of seperating egg and sperm, taking one each with the spider gene and fertilizing the egg in vitro to see what happens, we won't know for sure."

After reading your post, another way would be to see if 25% of the eggs die during the incubation period, but no one has brought that up in the thread thus far.

Best of luck proving out your morph. Do you have any pictures of it and what have you decided to call it?

Just to show some numbers on this that I have produced myself. I have bred Spider to Spider 25 times in total, the last time was 4 years ago. Out of all of them I had 1 slug and 3 eggs go bad during incubation. I did use ultra sound and every number is the exact same for follicle count vs eggs/slugs. I was very lucky and hatched 5 males the first year and they were breeding normal females the next year and were not homo spiders. The females that were raised up that were spider and bred to normal males produced the standard outcome. This year is the last year I will be doing these breedings and currently have 91 eggs incubating from those pairings. So we will see. But so far nothing at all has shown any form of lethality or a super form at all. So with the amount of breedings done on this is a decent amount for a base case study and more can be done to add to it. As a side note there were no multi gene animals used through the entire process it was only spider to spider and then offspring to normals.

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Originally Posted by Nick Mutton

This is a complete misinterpretation of what I said. Obviously not everyone with spiders is dishonest. And I agree its pointless to mis-represent them now as they are $100 snakes. However it was not all that many years ago that these snakes were $15-18,000 each and that kind of money does provide sufficient motive.

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Even when they were $15,000 what benefit is there to be gained from "hiding the truth" about a possible homozygous lethal spider (or any other perceived dominant) trait? If you are not of the mindset that anybody involved in a spider project is dishonest, then who are you accusing specifically of being dishonest? Is this something you'd feel comfortable posting about on fauna BOI, or is it speculation only? Regardless of any paranoia and suspicions on the topic, it's still no proof, or even can be remotely considered evidence, towards the conclusion of a homozygous spider.

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So far 100% of the evidence supports that its a lethal gene and no evidence suggests its dominant. I will go with the preponderance of evidence on this one. You guys can remain optimistic if you want! Sure you can hold out forever I suppose, and demand some sort of impossible to attain proof, but really as has been pointed out, who cares.

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I'm sorry, I guess I got confused and figured since you are so adamant that you KNOW something as fact, that it would be appropriate to request proof... but you're right. Lets remove the word proof entirely, as it really has no place in this conversation. Instead, please show me evidence that supports your theory(and pointing fingers at breeders for telling lies or keeping secrets doesn't count as evidence).

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You guys are also subjecting this morph to a higher standard of "proof" than any other.

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No, it's that the topic comes up time and time again, and most people are willing to accept that LOTS of morphs are unknown for certain. Most people call spider 'dominant' because it's simply easier, and seems to be the most suitable conlusion at the time, until enough evidence is compiled and presented, pointing towards a different conclusion. People don't have a specific agenda to "defend" the dominant status of the spider gene, it just happens to be topic that attracts quite a few people that claim theory as fact.

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The statistical proof that you seek is conveniently impossible to obtain, yet you make no similar demands of statistical proof for any other morph.

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I think you missed my bolded sentence previously. The one that said nobody is arguing it isn't lethal. We're all arguing semantics. The argument is that you claim to KNOW that which cannot be known. To KNOW for a fact requires PROOF. But you're right, proof is hard to come by, and since you claim to have lots of evidence pointing towards an incontrovertible conclusion, I ask you again. Please provide this evidence, that does not include the words "dishonest" and does not include stories of a friend who knew a guy, who knows some breeders in canada, who told him about some other guy in Kansas, who bred a spider to a champagne that died.

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I have a new morph (true story) that I proved out two years ago, I went for the super twice this year and in both cases there was no obvious homozygote, yet in each clutch (5 eggs and 6 eggs respectively) there were fertile eggs that died halfway through incubation, one in the first clutch and 2 in the second. I am well aware that its possible that I have a lethal gene here and am trying again with three females this season.

By your logic I should just sell the new morph as Dominant since I cant absolutely prove otherwise? If I get the same results this season (1 female just ovulated) and I lose roughly 25% of my fertile eggs at around 30 days of incubation (again), I still will not have "proven" anything, even though the answer becomes increasingly obvious.

By your logic, I cant say anything with certainty, yet to call it dominant when all the evidence suggests otherwise seems blatantly dishonest.

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No, you have evidence pointing towards possible lethal homo, and market it as such. More evidence points towards a more probable conclusion. There is very little actual proof in this world, so you label with the most likely answer for the evidence you have, and provide honest information. If more evidence points towards a different conclusion, then you change your theory, and you change your label.

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

Just to show some numbers on this that I have produced myself. I have bred Spider to Spider 25 times in total, the last time was 4 years ago. Out of all of them I had 1 slug and 3 eggs go bad during incubation. I did use ultra sound and every number is the exact same for follicle count vs eggs/slugs. I was very lucky and hatched 5 males the first year and they were breeding normal females the next year and were not homo spiders. The females that were raised up that were spider and bred to normal males produced the standard outcome. This year is the last year I will be doing these breedings and currently have 91 eggs incubating from those pairings. So we will see. But so far nothing at all has shown any form of lethality or a super form at all. So with the amount of breedings done on this is a decent amount for a base case study and more can be done to add to it. As a side note there were no multi gene animals used through the entire process it was only spider to spider and then offspring to normals.

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Very interesting, Tat! Thank you for sharing this information. I would love to be updated on your results :)

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

Just to show some numbers on this that I have produced myself. I have bred Spider to Spider 25 times in total, the last time was 4 years ago. Out of all of them I had 1 slug and 3 eggs go bad during incubation. I did use ultra sound and every number is the exact same for follicle count vs eggs/slugs. I was very lucky and hatched 5 males the first year and they were breeding normal females the next year and were not homo spiders. The females that were raised up that were spider and bred to normal males produced the standard outcome. This year is the last year I will be doing these breedings and currently have 91 eggs incubating from those pairings. So we will see. But so far nothing at all has shown any form of lethality or a super form at all. So with the amount of breedings done on this is a decent amount for a base case study and more can be done to add to it. As a side note there were no multi gene animals used through the entire process it was only spider to spider and then offspring to normals.

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Wow, I had no idea anyone had done this much to try to prove homozygous spider. Thank you for your diligence on this! One of the theories on why we don't have a public proven homozygous spider yet is that there just haven't been many spider X spider breedings due to lack of interest. Are you ready to put numbers to how many spiders and how many normals were produced from the 25 spider X spider pairings? Even if we are only talking 100 - 200 total offspring the ratio might be significant (i.e. is it closer to 75% or 67%). Of course if you hit on proving a homozygous spider this year that will put it to rest but if not I'd also be very interested in how many potential homozygous spiders where bred failing to prove as 50 - 100 of those could also be a statistically significant sample size. If both stats point toward there not being a homozygous spider then it's very interesting how this can be given your follicle counting. I'm pretty ignorant on the technical details of python reproduction. Are the follicles not yet even fertilized when you are counting them? Someone mentioned something I took to be the possibility that a female spider egg could only be fertilized by a non spider sperm. I don't really understand how that could be but if anyone could elaborate on that I'd be very interested as it would seem the only way to explain these results given the low count of bad eggs and the follicular counts seeming to rule out homozygous spiders dying early. I think TSK's much smaller sample early on happened to have right around 1/4 small bad eggs so I was really expecting that but of course can't argue with actual numbers, especially such a nice sized sample. Did any of the spiders prove infertile? That’s another angle I guess that someone brought up. I once heard someone assert that the definition of homozygous lethal extended to infertile but that seems a bit of a stretch to me but whatever it would be called would be nice to know about.

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

I did use ultra sound and every number is the exact same for follicle count vs eggs/slugs.

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There is the "impossible" evidence. I look forward to seeing your numbers. Anyone spending time on this deserves a great deal of respect.

I brought up the issue of sterility in a homozygous spider as well as the possibility of a pre-zygotic barrier to a homozygous spider.

In a spiderXspider pairing, where both parents were produced from spiderXnormal pairings to ensure that they were heterozygotes, we can expect 1 normal, two homozygous spider and one homozygous spider. If the homozygotes were sterile then we would expect 1 in 3spiders produced from the spiderXspider pairing to exhibit sterility, which is what I tried to get across in a previous post.

The existence of a pre-zygotic barrier to a fertilization that would create a homozygous spider seems like a very real possibility based on the data given in regards to follicle count vs. egg count in multiple spiderXspider pairings. Since both males and female spiders can produce viable spider offspring when bred to a normal, it is likely that a sperm with a y chromosme and the spider gene may not have the ability to fertilize an egg, meaning that only gametes with an X chromosome can carry the mutation (an X linked mutation?). This could be proven out by seeing if a male spider can father a male spider. If not, you have your answer, but if so, one would have to dig deeper to find out the reason that no homozygous spiders have been produced.

I think snakes use the zw sex chromosomes like birds, not the xy like mammals. Further, I think the females are the zw that determines the gender (zz male, zw female) of the offspring.

I know my original spider pair came from the same male spider to two normal girls. I just hatched a spider combo female from a spider female bred to a non spider male last night. There looks to be one more spider combo in the egg, I'll let you know if it happens to be male.

It would be very interesting and unexpected to me (but then what do I know) if somehow a spider sperm can't fertilize a spider egg. But it certainly would explain the results (or lack thereof) seen so far. I think the infertile super spider might be a more precedented explanation so will have to see what tattlife2001 has to say about that (i.e. have all the possible homozygous spiders been able to reproduce or are upwards of 1/3 failing?). If that turns out to be the case would be interesting how to categorize the mutation (is it still co-dominant lethal even if the homozygous looks the same because it is different in that it's removed from the gene pool by being sterile?). Anyway, jumping ahead, will need to hear some numbers on possible homozygous spiders reproducing first.

A few years ago I helped a professional geneticist work on his hobby project -- a similar project on the crested mutant gene in zebra finches. He mated crested x crested to try to get homozygous crested of both sexes. Then he mated the possible homozygous crested to a normal of the opposite sex. When normal offspring occurred, he marked that possible homozygous crested as a known heterozygous crested. He ended the project with 25 matings that produced either normal offspring or both crested and normal offspring. Zero matings produced only crested.

My point is that 5-10 matings are insufficient for the statistics.

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Originally Posted by paulh

My point is that 5-10 matings are insufficient for the statistics.

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I don't think anyone is arguing that an "n" of 5 or 10 would be sufficient, are they?

I've never heard of the wz before but I was looking at a breeder's pairings online and saw where a spider male produced both male and female spider offspring when bred to a normal female, so there goes that theory.

Paul, so after 25 33% chance possible homozygous animals in a row failed to prove did the breeder decide it's a homozygous lethal mutation? Did ya'll notice about 1/4 bad eggs from the het X het breedings or any infertile possible homozygous animals?

It seems to be avoided that there is a possibility that no slugs would be generated, that a matter of non-fertilization could occur in some cases blocking egg development. . .

Again guys, the point of this discussion was to touch a topic that doesn't seem to get much touching. When we deal with genetics we tend to over simplify the situation and this leads to ambiguity in the community that leads to a poor understanding of what's really going on with snake morphs. Some morphs can be quite easy to understand like in the case of recessive genes where we understand perfectly that this follows simple dominance genetics. Things that we lump as dominate though are not being defined within proper reason. We can call any gene that shows up or even "blends" dominate, as long as the phenotype can be observed on any given animal that contains the gene. But other than a dominate gene, we can not call it a simple "dominate" trait. The purpose was to encourage people to draw lines with what we can, and can not understand so that we can have the "many eyes effect" on the problem and come to a conclusion based on the available information. Need I remind the community that as in chemistry, sometimes zero is a significant number, and in Biology, sometimes 0 has meaning. For us to have zero homozygous spiders / pinstripes in the ball python community, we can safely conclude that these animals are not capable of producing homozygous offspring, it is safe to assume that it is lethal in it's homozygous form. Does this make the definition of Dominant false? Well, Yes and No, does it qualify it as Co-dominate? Again, yes and no. It all depends on how we define each term within the community.

This thread is not meant to be a war on breeders who lie and misrepresent facts, but is more of a war on the language we use to define new morphs. Whether or not we use this language to benifit new morphs coming into the community or not is another story. Perhaps one should only refer to morphs as the genes they contain instead of lumpng them as a heridability type. Dominant Genes just mean that the trait is shown with one copy of the gene, it may or may not look different with 2 copies, that's beyond the scope of dominant gene, recessive just means that it is hidden in the presence of a dominant gene on the same loci, because recessive traits are so easy to understand, I don't fear any ambiguity to their languag .

So lethal, infertile, non-producing, a myth, godzilla, bigfoot, whatever, let the lack of evidence stand as evidence for the case against defining a trait as dominant, and let breeders acknowledge the presence of fatal genes, or at least "non-existent homozygous" forms. Will it take work, sure! Will it pay off? Probably not . . . But hey, it's part of the experience, after all I started breeding reptiles to learn and enjoy the hobby, now I get to breed for a profit, but it doesn't mean I can stop learning or enjoying it. Take that to the bank and recieve your two cents . . . or don't . . . :cool:

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

It seems to be avoided that there is a possibility that no slugs would be generated, that a matter of non-fertilization could occur in some cases blocking egg development. . .

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seems to already be addressed actually....

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

I did use ultra sound and every number is the exact same for follicle count vs eggs/slugs.

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

For us to have zero homozygous spiders / pinstripes in the ball python community, we can safely conclude that these animals are not capable of producing homozygous offspring, it is safe to assume that it is lethal in it's homozygous form

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Why are you still on about a lethal homozygous pinstripe, when not only is there zero evidence of it, there is a case of a homozygous pinstripe.....

Now ill try to look past the fact twisting and repeat misinformation and lets actually look at what you claim is your concern.

This is how the general community classifies morphs.


Obviously this is a problem, here is my proposal


problem?

you realize that the terms we use, the vernacular of the trade including most all reptiles and not simply ball pythons, are not meant to be scientifically accurate, correct? they're meant to be expedient and convey a commly understood meaning so that everyone is on the same page, or at least reading the same book.

are co-dominant and incomplete dominant synonymous terms? of course not. but we use them in the trade interchangeably. it's just how the terminology has developed. I am still not sure what your point behind these discussions is, but it's a futile mantle to take up in my opinion. especially when you inject other information without anything to back it up.

it's an interesting idea, but one I don't think is fully formed or worth the debate.

Here are some of them numbers so far and my opinion on what is really going on with the spider gene.

194 spider to spider offspring of those there were 153 spiders, was the sex ratio. So that is 78.86% spider offspring hatched. So our of those numbers you can see the ratio of spiders. So that puts that to rest. There is no fatal gene at play at all if there was there would be something in those numbers to back it up. Next is the offspring from the spider to spider pairings being bred to normals. I have done that with every single one and as stated the rest are waiting to hatch this year. So far there have been the expected odds mostly split in half of normal to spider ratio. I do not that the exact number of offspring on hand but it was aright around 53% spiders produced. So unless these 91 eggs hatch and something throws all spiders, which would I then would have to breed it again next year to prove it wasnt a fluke, then it is proven that we are still not knowing exactly what is going on with the spider gene. I may not ahve the scientific terms like everyone else but something that makes sense to me is that when the spider gene is present nothing else can attach its self to the same location in the DNA. I think I will be going with that statement rather than anything else because from what I have seen that would appear to be the case.

Again, wow, just wow. The work to raise up 153 potential homozygous (33% chance) spiders must have been astronomical. Just because I couldn't come up with a theory to explain how there could be no proven homozygous spiders without it being homozygous lethal means nothing compared with the actual numbers. Of course 1,530 would have been better but already you have me trying to come up with new theories. Letting the data push our imaginations might be how we'll figure this one out.

So do I understand right that with the eggs incubating this year all or almost all of the potential homozygous spiders will have produced? The infertile homozygous spider theory would expect about 50 of those not to have been able to produce but if you are well over 100 and closing in on 150 I think we can put that theory to rest.

While testing out the possible homozygous spiders if you happen to have separate results for male spider to normal for spider from female spider to normal for spider I'd be interested if both where around 53% or if male spider to normal female was a lot higher. If spider sperm swim faster or otherwise are advantaged in fertilizing eggs it could explain your 78% spider ratio in the spider X spider clutches even with homozygous spiders somehow not making it (hard to explain the follicular count against that though).

Another wild theory I just came up with is parthenogenesis. Did a lot (like 25) of the male possible homozygous spiders throw very high spider ratios but eventually had just one or two normals disqualify them from the hunt for a proven homozygous? I've long wondered if female ball pythons might regularly produce parthenogenic babies. For this to be happening and disqualifying actual homozygous spiders (because they aren't the father of all the babies) it should be noticed first in known homozygous animals like leucistics and super pastels. Do these regularly produce a few normals and no one talks about it because it's so messy for the market? Problem with this theory is that it doesn’t explain how the expected roughly 25 homozygous spider females failed to prove (unless babies sometimes only get genetic material from dad by the same mechanism I'm proposing they sometimes only get from mom).

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Another wild theory I just came up with is parthenogenesis. Did a lot (like 25) of the male possible homozygous spiders throw very high spider ratios but eventually had just one or two normals disqualify them from the hunt for a proven homozygous? I've long wondered if female ball pythons might regularly produce parthenogenic babies. For this to be happening and disqualifying actual homozygous spiders (because they aren't the father of all the babies) it should be noticed first in known homozygous animals like leucistics and super pastels. Do these regularly produce a few normals and no one talks about it because it's so messy for the market? Problem with this theory is that it doesn’t explain how the expected roughly 25 homozygous spider females failed to prove (unless babies sometimes only get genetic material from dad by the same mechanism I'm proposing they sometimes only get from mom).

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I have never heard of cases of parthenogenesis occuring in balls, or any snakes for that matter, and there is definitely no way that babies could get genetic material from dad only.