Is there any reason why I don't see BEL x BEL breeding? (Super Lesser x Super Lesser)

I have a male and female BEL, both super lesser. Is there any reason why I shouldn't breed them together to get 100% BEL?

Thanks for your reply!

The only issue is the risk of 'bug eye' but you run that risk any time you make a super lesser no matter how you make it.

Yeah, go ahead and breed them if you're okay to deal with the offspring. Honestly, though, I'd say it's a pretty boring breeding program. If you can get a couple other supers in your BELs (Super Pastel, Super Cinnamon/Black Pastel, etc) you have a really really strong breeder snake, because all offspring will at least be het for each trait.

People don't like bug eyes, but it's not technically a health issue. And they actually grow out of it as they get bigger, which people don't seem to be aware of.

Here's my super lesser now (showing at an angle so you can see how flat his eyes are) at 1.5 years old:

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...2zso2_1280.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...2zso1_1280.jpg


And this is when he was a hatchling, which stayed relatively obvious until he was around 400g or so, I'm guessing... LOL:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...2zso1_1280.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...2zso1_1280.jpg

^^^ I can still see the "defect". It definitely has lessened though. The most severe case of this I have seen is where one eye was actually larger than the other. My primary focus is BEL complex and I personally do not see a need to ever do a Lesser to Lesser pairing if the goal is to make an all white BEL. Lesser to Mojave works just fine. I am not condemning those that do, there is just a safer way to get there.

Pardon my ignorance but what was BEL stand for?#

Edit: Penny dropped.. Blue Eyed Lucy. Gotcha.

blue eyed leucistic, it has also been used for black eyed leucistic. When talking about the BEL Complex it always stands for blue eyed leucistic which includes mojaves, lessers, phantoms, specials and a few others.

I've seen it a couple times but I've only seen super pastel x super pastel a couple times also. It doesn't get you genetically further, that's why you don't see it often. Bugs eyes have nothing to do with it. Otherwise we would see things like super enchi x super enchi all the time, they have no issues and are a very in demand snake and we would hardly see super lessers at all

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

Yeah, go ahead and breed them if you're okay to deal with the offspring. Honestly, though, I'd say it's a pretty boring breeding program. If you can get a couple other supers in your BELs (Super Pastel, Super Cinnamon/Black Pastel, etc) you have a really really strong breeder snake, because all offspring will at least be het for each trait.

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Super pastel , cinnamon and black pastels can't be hets unless they are from some kind of recessive gene


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by jkerezsi

Super pastel , cinnamon and black pastels can't be hets unless they are from some kind of recessive gene


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The het ( short for heterozygous) is implied when we say pastel, cinny, black pastel ect. They are however all hets.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-does-het-mean


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Narrow in scope.

Having a phenotype from a heterozygous genotype does not mean the animal is not heterozygous.

Spiders, for instance, are, as far as we know (and with good evidence), all het for the spider gene.

Just because a trait is codom, does not mean individuals showing the trait, but not the super form, are somehow not heterozygous.

Hrm, double post but...

Phenotype- the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.
Genotype-the genetic constitution of an individual organism.
Heterozygous (het)- having dissimilar pairs of genes for any hereditary characteristic.
Homozygous (hom)- having identical pairs of genes for any given pair of hereditary characteristics.
Recessive- that one of a pair of alternative alleles whose effect is masked by the activity of the second when both are present in the same cell or organism.
Dominant- the one of a pair of alternative alleles that masks the effect of the other when both are present in the same cell or organism.
Codominant- of or relating to two different alleles that are fully expressed in a heterozygous individual.

Heterozygous in regards to Dominant and Recessive Genes
A "het" individual which has one dominant gene and one recessive gene will display the dominant trait in its phenotype. In desired recessive traits we use this with a percentage of likelihood based upon the genetic possibility of it having the trait.

Heterozygous and Codominant Genes
The "het" individual displays both genes phenotypically, we often call this mixture having the desired codominant trait by the granted gene name, Lesser, Pastel, Fire, etc. The "super" version of these traits is the homozygous form of the desired gene.

So while the Super form of a codominant trait is homozygous (hom), the displayed non-super trait is heterozygous (het).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jkerezsi

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-does-het-mean


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Scroll down a couple more posts for my reply. They asked what het means implying the lingo of the trade. We are talking about actual biology. Pastels are a pastel gene and a normal gene sitting at a locus. This by definition is heterozygous aka het. The het is implied when we call them pastels (the lingo), so it doesn't get brought up. Doesn't stop it from being true though.

In the case of my original post it's a useful term as it means from one parent it will be getting each of those genes.

So if you have a BEL (Super Lesser) Super Pastel Super Cinnamon bred to a Super Pastel all offspring will be Lesser, Super Pastel, Cinnamons. Here we have het from one parent for 3 genes, and het for 1 gene from the other parent, leading to 2 hets and a hom.

Taking 2 BELs (super lesser) and breeding them together leads to a somewhat boring outcome of all BELs (super lesser). So you're a lot better off trying to get together a couple super cinnamon super pastel lessers and breeding them for BELs which can then be used to produce a lot of interesting snakes. Like if you bred those to a fire, Super Pastel, Enchi you'd have a lot of possibilities