Quick question for the breeders...

On another forum, I've been speaking with this guy who is sure he has come across a hypo bp. He got it from his friend who got it from someone else. Blah blah blah...the odds are slim to none it's an actual hypo, and the pics he's provided does not back up his claim at all. Anyway, I brought up the fact that most morphs have clean white bellies. He came back and said that he doesn't think hypos, or most morphs, have clean white bellies. Just a handful. Now, I've looked online and found that a good chunk of morphs have white bellies. But do all of them? Is it a fairly solid characteristic of morphs? I noticed most, if not all co-dom have them, but couldn't find a lot of belly shots for recessive. I'm fairly sure albinos, pieds, and others have white bellies, but not completely sure.

Sorry, it's just one of those things that would bug me until I find out, lol.

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Originally Posted by Cody

But do all of them?

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No.

Maybe Randy will post his spreadsheet for us! :D

-adam

You know it, I was working on it during your edit!

Some morphs get sold as normals in pet stores from time to time but it is pretty rare. The best thing to look for with ghost would be if you can see the pattern in the shed. A good ghost should have a white/patternless shed. However non-ghosts have been known to shed clear at times too but if he sees a strong pattern in the shed now it can be eliminated from possibly being a ghost.

Bellies are interesting and sometimes hard to find pictures of so lets see if we can't refine a list here. The subject came up on kingsnake back on 12/7 and here is what I got from that and the few I've gotten to see in person or in pics:

No dark on Belly:
yellow belly (het ivory) - marked edges and yellow on the belly but not much black
homozygous albino of course
homozygous piebald
most but not all heterozygous piebalds
homozygous stripe
heterozygous calico
pastel (het and homozygous)
mojave (het and homozygous)
lesser (het and homozygous)
Vin Russo High Yellow Lemon (het and homozygous)
Fireball (het) and homozygous black-eyed leucistic

Usually dark marked Belly:
normal (although presumably some clear bellies are just normals)
het clown
het albino
het red axanthic
woma (het pearl)
spotnose (the het form)
sable (the het form)

Anyone have corrections or some of the many missing blanks to fill in? I think a complete and accurate list could be very useful.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

You know it, I was working on it during your edit!

Some morphs get sold as normals in pet stores from time to time but it is pretty rare. The best thing to look for with ghost would be if you can see the pattern in the shed. A good ghost should have a white/patternless shed. However non-ghosts have been known to shed clear at times too but if he sees a strong pattern in the shed now it can be eliminated from possibly being a ghost.

Bellies are interesting and sometimes hard to find pictures of so lets see if we can't refine a list here. The subject came up on kingsnake back on 12/7 and here is what I got from that and the few I've gotten to see in person or in pics:

No dark on Belly:
yellow belly (het ivory) - marked edges and yellow on the belly but not much black
homozygous albino of course
homozygous piebald
most but not all heterozygous piebalds
homozygous stripe
heterozygous calico
pastel (het and homozygous)
mojave (het and homozygous)
lesser (het and homozygous)
Vin Russo High Yellow Lemon (het and homozygous)
Fireball (het) and homozygous black-eyed leucistic

Usually dark marked Belly:
normal (although presumably some clear bellies are just normals)
het clown
het albino
het red axanthic
woma (het pearl)
spotnose (the het form)
sable (the het form)

Anyone have corrections or some of the many missing blanks to fill in? I think a complete and accurate list could be very useful.

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Umm, Was the Question for Breeders or Wannabees^^^???

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Anyone have corrections or some of the many missing blanks to fill in?

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Sure do ... how much do you have on ya? :P

-adam

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

You know it, I was working on it during your edit!

Some morphs get sold as normals in pet stores from time to time but it is pretty rare. The best thing to look for with ghost would be if you can see the pattern in the shed. A good ghost should have a white/patternless shed. However non-ghosts have been known to shed clear at times too but if he sees a strong pattern in the shed now it can be eliminated from possibly being a ghost.

Bellies are interesting and sometimes hard to find pictures of so lets see if we can't refine a list here. The subject came up on kingsnake back on 12/7 and here is what I got from that and the few I've gotten to see in person or in pics:

No dark on Belly:
yellow belly (het ivory) - marked edges and yellow on the belly but not much black
homozygous albino of course
homozygous piebald
most but not all heterozygous piebalds
homozygous stripe
heterozygous calico
pastel (het and homozygous)
mojave (het and homozygous)
lesser (het and homozygous)
Vin Russo High Yellow Lemon (het and homozygous)
Fireball (het) and homozygous black-eyed leucistic

Usually dark marked Belly:
normal (although presumably some clear bellies are just normals)
het clown
het albino
het red axanthic
woma (het pearl)
spotnose (the het form)
sable (the het form)

Anyone have corrections or some of the many missing blanks to fill in? I think a complete and accurate list could be very useful.

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The few things i did see thats wrong is thier is no such thing as a het pastel.Also no such thing as het majove.I also do not think lessers are hets either.I am not trying to be rude.

Everyone quit quoting that awfully long post....j/k...

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

Some morphs get sold as normals in pet stores from time to time but it is pretty rare.

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Hey Jas....I heard some crazy rumor that you even picked up a spotnose from Petco..whats the deal with that? ;)

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Originally Posted by joepythons

The few things i did see thats wrong is thier is no such thing as a het pastel.Also no such thing as het majove.I also do not think lessers are hets either.I am not trying to be rude.

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Don't worry Randy should be used to it by now.

Watch out ... he's going to drop some mad science on you! ... LOL

Let er rip Randy! :D

-adam

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Originally Posted by reptile-girl

i got 2 pics of a ghost. here they are:

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I know your intentions are good, but posting copyrighted material is not only a violation of the terms of service of this site, but a federal crime.

Next time, a link would be much better ... at least it gives the actual owner of the animal a little bit of credit.

:D

-adam

oh my gosh. that is just rediculous that i know more about genetics then randy and im 13! i wish i coulda got here first so you guys could see a 13 year old rip him apart. maybe next time:P

Ok I can't resist correcting you silly people. YES there is het mojave it just looks like... a mojave! Mojave/platty/pastel are co-dominant traits. Het does NOT mean it looks normal, it means that the animal carries ONE copy of the mutant gene.. technically it means the two genes on the locus are different.

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Originally Posted by mr~python

oh my gosh. that is just rediculous that i know more about genetics then randy and im 13! i wish i coulda got here first so you guys could see a 13 year old rip him apart. maybe next time:P

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Not a chance ... Randy is wicked smart ... you're just learning ... give it time. ;)

-adam

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Originally Posted by Shelby

Ok I can't resist correcting you silly people. YES there is het mojave it just looks like... a mojave! Mojave/platty/pastel are co-dominant traits. Het does NOT mean it looks normal, it means that the animal carries ONE copy of the mutant gene.. technically it means the two genes on the locus are different.

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Even though Randy would have us all believe that the technical term for a pastel is a visable het, most people do not commonly call a pastel a "het" or a fireball a "het"... because it is a visable morph. Granted... there is a super form for fires and pastels, and the super is TECHNICALLY called a homozygous, there aren't many folks that actually refer to a Super Pastel as a Homozygous Pastel.

It's like the blue eyed lucy... no one really knows what all creates them. If we did it Randy's way, the blue eyed lucy would be a Homozygous Platinum, or a Homozygous Lesser, or a Homozygous Phantom.... and therein lies yet another question... Blue Eyed Lucys (to my understanding) have been created Lesser/Lesser, Platty/Lesser, Phantom/Lesser, Mojave/Lesser, so tell me how you would explain the homozygous trait. And which one is the het?

I am in no way a genetics expert... and I still get genetics stuff wrong all the time... but here's what I'm saying... It would be MUCH more simple for the newer people if the terms het and homozygous would be used for simple recessive genotypes and the co-doms and doms would just be pastels and super pastels.

...okay.. I'm ready for my lashing now

No lashing, just discussion. IMHO with all the dominant type mutations it's getting complicated enough that it will be simpler/better for the new people to learn the real meaning of heterozygous and homozygous rather than continuing the snake industries limited (mis) use as only applying het to recessive. If you understand that the pastel phenotype is a het pastel genotype you can use the same rules for predicting its offspring genotypes as with albino hets.

Here is a theory on blue-eyed leucistics. It may be that lesser, mojave, phantom, Vin Russo high yellow lemons, and perhaps butter and even the dilute gene that turns lessers into phantoms are all different mutations of the same gene. This is fundamentally different than say pastel and spider, which have been proven to be different mutations of DIFFERENT genes. The important thing to remember about different mutations of the SAME gene (alleles) is that you can only have at most two copies of the same gene - one from mom and one from dad. In this theory the leucistics are homozygous for mutant versions of this gene but the versions don't have to be the same. For example, the homozygous lesser seems to be the whitest so far. The lesser/phantom combo produces the karma with a little back stripe. The lesser/mojave combo has the cheek color. The homozygous mojave the purplish head. Surprisingly the apparent homozygous phantom has lots of gray color and probably wouldn't even be called a leucistic. And Greg Graziani even produced a very white blue eyed leucistic from high yellow lemon X mojave. Per this theory these are all "homozygous" for mutant versions of a common gene. There is actually a better term than "homozygous" but I can't find it right now (but will keep looking) that indicates that the two copies aren't necessarily the same but neither are normal. Per Hahaman's twist the platy may even be "homozygous" for mutant versions of this common gene with dilute being yet another mutant allele but apparently the homozygous dilute either isn’t possible or looks normal.

Genetically speaking....the yellowbelly (het. ivory) really facinates me....it seems to 'bring' out or enhance anything.....then you get a crazying looking animal like a yellowbelly stipe....

Also, wasn't RDRs 'goblin marker' in the mix in some of his phantom breedings? I never hear to much about the chance of that being mixed in with the lucies somewhere.

Like Ken, I am trying to get a true grasp on this stuff ;)

The only main problem i see reffering to say pastels as het pastels and other co-doms is it would confuse a newbee let me explain.If new people start seeing people refer to pastels as het pastels it opens the door to scammers.All it takes is one scammer to get a high gold ball python and start selling them to new people who do not know the truth.When i first started out i believed everything i read on some sites.I figured these people knew what they were talking about:) .Well luckily i have a friend who breeds several ball python morphs:D .Before i bought anything i asked him and most of the things i allmost bought was crap as the person was lying.When i explain the ball python genetics to someone i explain the true hets,co-doms and doms.The ball python genetics are confusing enough at first:O .

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Originally Posted by joepythons

All it takes is one scammer to get a high gold ball python and start selling them to new people who do not know the truth.

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That stuff already happens....I hate scammers :matrixfig :explosion

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

That stuff already happens....I hate scammers :matrixfig :explosion

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TRUE but the more people we make aware of the gentics on ball pythons maybe we can get rid of the scams:D .

wouldnt saying, for example,"pastel (het and homozygous)" be the same thing as saying that a het albino has a "het" form?

joepythons,

Apparently genetics is going to be a little confusing no mater what. But I think if we keep working on using the correct terminology it will be the least confusing as possible for the most people. If we keep trying to find a better way to explain things I believe most everyone can eventually understand.

If potential ball python breeders understand that hets for dominant type morphs aren't normal looking and that pastel is a dominant type morph (the co-dominant or incomplete dominant type) then they will not expect a het pastel genotype to look normal. They will also have the added benefit of understanding why a pastel passes the pastel gene to half of it's offspring and why a homozygous (super) pastel passes it to all of them. I can see where using "het pastel" is confusing to the old snake breeders because we have been using "het" to mean normal looking for so long with the early recessive morphs. However, now that there are so many dominant type mutations and combos I believe the benefits of understanding the wider meaning of heterozygous and applying it will outweigh the discomfort of the transition. The sooner we as an industry make this transition the sooner newbies won't have an old system to eventually unlearn.


mr~python,

What I meant by "pastel (het and homozygous)" was that both the heterozygous and the homozygous pastel genotypes have clear bellies. If you prefer the phenotypes to the genotypes that translates to both pastels and super pastels. Because albino is the recessive mutation type the het albino genotype has the normal phenotype - i.e. the het form of albino is normal looking. The het form of pastel is a visible pastel morph.

My notation wasn’t the best there so I’ll repost it as a table (if this forum supports them) now that Adam’s spreadsheet comment gave me the idea for an html table generator directly from Excel. I still hope to eventually build an interactive online version but for now a simple way to generate forum tables such as those to produce Punnet’s squares from Excel sounds useful. I suspect there is already a tool out there to do this but it will be fun to make my own.

But do try to avoid mixing the morph type descriptions with the word "form" as in "dominant form" and "co-dominant form" as pretty soon you will be describing the same mutation as being both dominant and co-dominant when what you are really describing is the appearances of the heterozygous and homozygous genotypes. The actual mutation type doesn't change depending on if you are looking at a pastel or a super pastel.

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mr~python,

What I meant by "pastel (het and homozygous)" was that both the heterozygous and the homozygous pastel genotypes have clear bellies.

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oh, ok. i thought so, just wasnt sure.;)

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But do try to avoid mixing the morph type descriptions with the word "form" as in "dominant form" and "co-dominant form"

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im pretty sure i said HET "form". it sounds fine to me.:)

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The het form of pastel is a visible pastel morph.

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i was under the impression that there wasnt a het form for a pastel and they were the het for a super pastel!! i thought the het form of a SUPER pastel was a visible pastel morph. are you saying if a breed a pastel and a normal i will get pastel "hets" and they will be visible pastel morphs?

you're starting to confuse me.

Sorry, the confusion may be over the word "pastel" being used to refer to an individual snake's appearance and also to the mutant gene that causes that appearance. The snakes with the pastel appearance (phenotype) are heterozygous for the pastel gene (genotype). They have one copy of the pastel mutated version of that gene and one normal copy of that gene.

If you say that a pastel is het for super pastel you are back to corrupting the meaning of the word heterozygous again. We are starting to realize that heterozygous doesn't mean normal looking gene carrier just because that's how it works out with recessive genes. But heterozygous also doesn't mean half way to another morph just because that's how it works out with co-dominant mutation types. What if some day a completely dominant mutation is proven? With the completely dominant mutation type the hets will look just like the homozygous mutant genotypes. The hets will not be halfway to another appearance.

What heterozygous really means is having an unmatched pair of whatever gene you are talking about. The pastel phenotype is heterozygous for the pastel mutation of the pastel gene because it has one normal copy of that gene and one pastel mutant copy.

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

If you say that a pastel is het for super pastel you are back to corrupting the meaning of the word heterozygous again.

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how? thats what a pastel is, het for super pastel. isnt it?

Heterozygous is a genetic term and refers to a gene's genotype. So if you are using "het" and "pastel" together you are talking about the pastel mutant version of the gene rather than the "pastel" appearance. I suppose we could call it the "super pastel" gene rather than the "pastel" gene then it would work out that the pastel looking animals are het for the super pastel gene.

It's hard to know what to call a gene because we are usually talking about the phenotype. For example, if it turns out that mojave and lesser are at the same locus what should we call that gene?

Unfortunately without html code enabled I don't think I can post the updated spreadsheet of belly types here. I tried using “[“ instead of “<” but tables don’t seem to be an undocumented vB code like I had hoped. I'll try it out on another forum.

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Originally Posted by daniel1983

Genetically speaking....the yellowbelly (het. ivory) really facinates me....it seems to 'bring' out or enhance anything.....then you get a crazying looking animal like a yellowbelly stipe....

Also, wasn't RDRs 'goblin marker' in the mix in some of his phantom breedings? I never hear to much about the chance of that being mixed in with the lucies somewhere.

Like Ken, I am trying to get a true grasp on this stuff ;)

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I think I read somewhere that the "Goblin Marker" was a het ivory (yellowbelly).. but of course, I'm not completely sure.

Back on the subject of Lucy's. It's truely amazing to me all of the different combos that can be made to come up with Blue Eyed Lucies. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five different combos. Of course, as Daniel says, the Lesser/Lesser seems to produce the most clean version of it... but there are many others as well.

The "hidden" gene that seems to be in Lesser sibs is amazing as well... what could possibly be in there... what is this hidden gene and how can it be used? And how can you tell which sib carries the hidden gene? If the hidden gene can somehow be used effectively, then its completely feasable that as soon as the lesser becomes more common (10 years or so), completely normal looking (and normal marketed) balls could pop out some amazing mutations that people never thought they'd get.

The "hidden" gene that turns a lesser into a platy is what I'm calling "dilute". Per the Hahaman theory all the normal looking offspring of platty X normal would have it and none of the lessers would have it (or they would be platys).

It looks like being homozygous for the dilute gene either isn't possible or it doesn't do anything major to the appearance. Given that being het for the dilute gene doesn't seem to do anything by it's self without being combined with lesser or butter (or perhaps other leucistic hets) it may well be that the homozygous dilutes are normal looking too. I don't know if RDR has sold any dilute hets or their descendents or any platy's (which are also dilute hets per this theory). However, given the "hidden" nature of this gene there may be other lines out there with it that will eventually be found by accident when breeding with lessers, butters, or possibly other mutations in the leucistic het group.

Dude, Update your website for crying outloud..