Pin, Spider questions

Ok, from what I had read, spiders and pins are both dominate but only contain one gene for their trait, so that they can pass on the normal gene, and make normal babies with normal partners. Is this true?

I was talking to a friend and he thought that all pins produce 100% pins when bred to normals.

This is what gets confusing to me.... if spiders and pins are both dominate forms, when you breed them to other spiders/pins and produce offspring, couldnt some of the babies look like spiders and pins, but have the genetics to produce 100% when bred to a normal?

I know it would be hard to prove without breeding a lot, but just curious.

Spiders and pins are thought of as Dominant traits. Remember that while a spider that is, well, visually a spider (no hets because its dominant) most likely is a heterozygous carrier of the gene/allele/whatever. That means that it carries a spider gene/allele paired with a wild-type gene/allele. When you cross that with a normal, that wild-type gene is what causes that theoretical 50/50 split of normals and spiders when a heterzygous spider is crosses with a normal.

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couldnt some of the babies look like spiders and pins, but have the genetics to produce 100% when bred to a normal?

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From what I know, it's possible that a visual spider can in fact be a homozygous spider. These spiders are created from spider x spider pairings. And since there's no way to tell what a homozygous spider looks like because there's no super form know so far, the only way to tell is to breed that spider over and over and over to normals and generate nothing but spider offspring. I'm not sure if there's a benchmark as far as proving a homozygous spider, but I'd feel like a real tool if I proclaimed to have a homozygous spider due to good odds, then pop out a normal baby here and there.


ps. When one talks about the letters on punnent squares, ex. Nn aa, is the right term for each letter gene, allele, or what? I've got an elementary understanding of how it all works but forgive me if I butchered the right terminology.

http://www.ballpython.ca/genetics.html
and
http://www.newenglandreptile.com/genetics_codom.html

On another forum someone had said that the spider is a dominant gene and there is no super like pastels because there is no visual difference. Like theres a difference between pastel and a super pastel. That is what I heard so it may be wrong.

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Spiders and pins are thought of as Dominant traits. Remember that while a spider that is, well, visually a spider (no hets because its dominant) most likely is a heterozygous carrier of the gene/allele/whatever. That means that it carries a spider gene/allele paired with a wild-type gene/allele. When you cross that with a normal, that wild-type gene is what causes that theoretical 50/50 split of normals and spiders when a heterzygous spider is crosses with a normal.



From what I know, it's possible that a visual spider can in fact be a homozygous spider. These spiders are created from spider x spider pairings. And since there's no way to tell what a homozygous spider looks like because there's no super form know so far, the only way to tell is to breed that spider over and over and over to normals and generate nothing but spider offspring. I'm not sure if there's a benchmark as far as proving a homozygous spider, but I'd feel like a real tool if I proclaimed to have a homozygous spider due to good odds, then pop out a normal baby here and there.


ps. When one talks about the letters on punnent squares, ex. Nn aa, is the right term for each letter gene, allele, or what? I've got an elementary understanding of how it all works but forgive me if I butchered the right terminology.

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That is the way i understood it as well, but a friend was fairly adament (sp?) about it, so I thought I would double check heh.


As far as punnet squares I would say a spider is Ss (lowercase s meaning normal gene on the spider allele?)

So a Bumblebee would be Ss Pp a super pastel woudl be PP a killerbee would be SsPP

At least that is how I do it.

Horizontal line is a visible spider, verticle line is a normal

S s
s Ss ss

s Ss ss

Ss x 2 = visible spiders
ss x 2 = normals

so 50% spiders, 50% normals


Bumblebee punnet square x normal


---sp---Sp---sP---SP
sp sspp Sspp ssPp SsPp
sp sspp Sspp ssPp SsPp
sp sspp Sspp ssPp SsPp
sp sspp Sspp ssPp SsPp


sspp = normal
Sspp = Spider
ssPp = Pastel
SsPp = Bumblebee

25% chance of each

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Originally Posted by shhhli

http://www.ballpython.ca/genetics.html
and
http://www.newenglandreptile.com/genetics_codom.html

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Yeah i understand genetics, just wanted clarification on the specifics of these two dominate traits.

No, you're right. A spider is thought of as Dominant, while pastels are thought of as co-dominant. A pastel is co-dominant because homozygous pastels show up as the "super" form of the morph. A spider is simply just called dominant because even if you create a homozygous spider and managed to prove it, it wouldn't look any different than heterozygous carriers of the gene.

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

I was talking to a friend and he thought that all pins produce 100% pins when bred to normals.

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100% not true ... I guarantee it. ;) :sweeet:

-adam

I am talking with a breeder on the internet right now and he said that kevin @ NERD proved there is no super 4 years ago.

EDIT: I am talking about the spider not the pin.

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Originally Posted by Regal Boids

I am talking with a breeder on the internet right now and he said that kevin @ NERD proved there is no super 4 years ago.

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No "visuallly different" super.

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

No "visuallly different" super.

-adam

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But in terms of super genetics? IE: full spider clutches?

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Originally Posted by shhhli

But in terms of super genetics? IE: full spider clutches?

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That is my second question. Logically in my mind, it is possible.... unless there is some fatality rule that will kill it off if it has both spider genes.

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Originally Posted by shhhli

But in terms of super genetics? IE: full spider clutches?

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Super is not really a genetics term..its a snake breeder's term, bnut its a good term......its a term that describes the appearance of a snake. (It describes phenotypes not genotypes).

A couple of other definations:

Allele: Version of a gene
Phenotype: Appearance or trait of an organism
Genotype: The specific composition of alleles for a give gene pair or set of
gene pairs (i.e. Pp or SsPp)


Hetrozygous (adl.)-having two different alleles for a given gene pair (Ss)
Homozygous-having two of the same allele for a given gene pair (SS or ss)

Dominant-Only Need one copy of the Gene to look different than normal (Ss)
recessive-need to copies of the gene to look different than normal (albinos for example aa)


Super is used when the homozygous dominant genotype looks different than the hetrozygote. This occurs with co-dominant genetics.

SuperPastel occurs with the homozygous dominant genotype (PP) of the Pastel allele. Because the (PP) genotype is visually different from the hetrozygous pastel genotype (Pp), the prefix Super- is applied to this appearance.

In dominant genetics the dominant homozygote (SS) looks no different than the hetrozygote (Ss).

This means that you can never be 100% certain with simple breeding experiments that you have a homozygous spider. You could breed a normal to a spider and see if you only got spiders year after year.

If you got 3 clutches which had all 8 spiders you could be pretty statistically confident that you had a Spider with a homozygous dominant genotype (SS).

The chance of not producing a normal from a Ss x ss in 24 offspring would be over 1 in a million.

By now someone ethier has a spider that only produces spiders or we dont fully understand the genetics of the trait.....(ie something else is going on so that the SS genotype is not produced)

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

That is my second question. Logically in my mind, it is possible.... unless there is some fatality rule that will kill it off if it has both spider genes.

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This has been hashed over a couple of times on this site ... search around for the full discussion.

But, the bottom line is, spiders were proven in 99 ... but since it was a brand new project, only a small number of girls were produced ... you figure if all goes well 3 years to raise up the girls to breeding size ... producing the first possible super spiders in 2002 ... no visual, so now you gotta figure what's going on ... some of those spider (possible supers) were surely sold because Kevin was probably figuring that he just "missed" (who knows if the people that bought them actually bred them, killed them by accident, or what) .... keep some of those males and breed them in 2003 ... maybe there were all spider clutches in 04, and then again, maybe Kev just missed? ... maybe he picked the wrong males to breed ... since they all do look alike, it's not easy, and 1 year for males/3 years for girls isn't always as easy as it sounds ... neither is always getting clutches from the girls you put boys with ... or having enough girls to "dink" in large scale while you're still trying to run a business ... all that aside, if there were some all spider clutches from possible super spider males in 04 or 05, with all of the heat that Kev is getting from "internet experts" *cough*idiots*cough* would you think he'd be willing to come running to a message board and scream "I did it! I did it!" when he could have just gotten lucky in the odds game? OR do you think he'd want to do those same breedings again for another season just to be sure ... so that the "internet experts" don't have any "ammo" to fire off conspiracy theories with ... Based on the timeline ... if all went perfect, 05 or 06 should be that "second year" ... if "all went perfect" ... the rub about working with live animals, is that nothing ever works out how you'd like ... they always have a way of humbling you.

Just my :2cent:

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

This has been hashed over a couple of times on this site ... search around for the full discussion.

But, the bottom line is, spiders were proven in 99 ... but since it was a brand new project, only a small number of girls were produced ... you figure if all goes well 3 years to raise up the girls to breeding size ... producing the first possible super spiders in 2002 ... no visual, so now you gotta figure what's going on ... some of those spider (possible supers) were surely sold because Kevin was probably figuring that he just "missed" (who knows if the people that bought them actually bred them, killed them by accident, or what) .... keep some of those males and breed them in 2003 ... maybe there were all spider clutches in 04, and then again, maybe Kev just missed? ... maybe he picked the wrong males to breed ... since they all do look alike, it's not easy, and 1 year for males/3 years for girls isn't always as easy as it sounds ... neither is always getting clutches from the girls you put boys with ... or having enough girls to "dink" in large scale while you're still trying to run a business ... all that aside, if there were some all spider clutches from possible super spider males in 04 or 05, with all of the heat that Kev is getting from "internet experts" *cough*idiots*cough* would you think he'd be willing to come running to a message board and scream "I did it! I did it!" when he could have just gotten lucky in the odds game? OR do you think he'd want to do those same breedings again for another season just to be sure ... so that the "internet experts" don't have any "ammo" to fire off conspiracy theories with ... Based on the timeline ... if all went perfect, 05 or 06 should be that "second year" ... if "all went perfect" ... the rub about working with live animals, is that nothing ever works out how you'd like ... they always have a way of humbling you.

Just my :2cent:

-adam

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Or this third possibility....no one wants to say they only have a spider that produces spiders until they feel very confident (this is different for different people) or they want to hold onto it very very much and keep it secret!

they havent been around that long (7 years) so it might be possible that the spiders sold were the homzygous spiders.....and that they werent breed very much or at all by the smaller hobbyists who bought them....this does seem a bit strange however....fluky things do happen though....and it does take a few years to get these animals up to breeding weight.

To me the consipiracy theories dont make complete sense for the people who are supposedly generating them......if homozygous dominant spiders arent produced because homozygous Spider genotype is lethal, this would maintain or raise the long-term value of spiders. This means that it is harder to produce spiders! The rarer something is the more it usually is worth.

Though the term "lethal" isnt exactly a marketer's dream....especially if your customer base doesnt realize, believe, or understand that the lethal allele does nothing negatively to the animal in the hetrozygous condition. You could always come up with a "nicer" term.....SS is non-viable, non-existant, etc.


Sooner or later this question will be answered, inquiring minds (i.e. idiots) and potential investors would like to know. Maybe in 2024 when we have 25 years worth of spider breedings we will be able to say that the homozygous spider is non-existant. Time will tell.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

inquiring minds (i.e. idiots)

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Thank you Mendel ... I really enjoy being antagonized. :sweeet:

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Thank you Mendel ... I really enjoy being antagonized. :sweeet:

-adam

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I am not trying to antagoize you....I'm just saying perhaps the people would just like to know....they are curious.

I dont think it fair to label all people that want to know as "idiots" that's all......in my mind, that's like creating a consipracy theory about the people who want to know more about these animals but are still somewhat beginners or are on the sidelines...like "we" have a secret agenda of price drop in mind....

Personally, I think most people just are curious about the stituation and are trying to figure it out for themselves....

Only when I have the money and confidence in my bp breeding/husbrandy skills, I'd like to get a spider

Ill want to get one regardless of whether they are possible in the homozygous dominant form or not.......there are tons of designer morph you create with this one base morph and the base morph is awesome looking in my opinion.

Besides if small breeders stick to your good advice about selling the same as any other breeder...why worry about us hacks and our amateur science?

We are just curious and trying to enjoy the hobby in our own way.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

I dont think it fair to label all people that want to know as "idiots" that's all

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Did you even read what I typed?

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

with all of the heat that Kev is getting from "internet experts" *cough*idiots*cough*

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I NEVER STATED that people that are just curious are idiots ... just the people that are specifically giving Kevin a hard time with baseless speculation, accusations, and conspicacy theories.

Nice attempt at twisting my words though ... Thanks a lot buddy ... Like I said, I really appreciate it! ;) :sweeet:

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Did you even read what I typed?



I NEVER STATED that people that are just curious are idiots ... just the people that are specifically giving Kevin a hard time with baseless speculation, accusations, and conspicacy theories.

Nice attempt at twisting my words though ... Thanks a lot buddy ... Like I said, I really appreciate it! ;) :sweeet:

-adam

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I'm saying maybe they arent idoits for giving him "heat"...they are just curious and want to know. I agree with you that if they are making baseless accusations while pressuring him that this is a stupid behavior. But only if they are doing that.....everything else seems just like curiousity to me.

Not trying to twist your words...I think I just misunderstood them. Thanks for clarifying your position and what you meant.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

I'm saying maybe they arent idoits for giving him "heat"...they are just curious and want to know. I agree with you that if they are making baseless accusations while pressuring him that this is a stupid behavior. But only if they are doing that.....everything else seems just like curiousity to me.

Not trying to twist your words...I think I just misunderstood them. Thanks for clarifying your position and what you meant.

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WOW.

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

WOW.

-adam

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No need for that.....we all make mistakes or misunderstand things at times.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Super is not really a genetics term..its a snake breeder's term, bnut its a good term......its a term that describes the appearance of a snake. (It describes phenotypes not genotypes).

A couple of other definations:

Allele: Version of a gene
Phenotype: Appearance or trait of an organism
Genotype: The specific composition of alleles for a give gene pair or set of
gene pairs (i.e. Pp or SsPp)


Hetrozygous (adl.)-having two different alleles for a given gene pair (Ss)
Homozygous-having two of the same allele for a given gene pair (SS or ss)

Dominant-Only Need one copy of the Gene to look different than normal (Ss)
recessive-need to copies of the gene to look different than normal (albinos for example aa)


Super is used when the homozygous dominant genotype looks different than the hetrozygote. This occurs with co-dominant genetics.

SuperPastel occurs with the homozygous dominant genotype (PP) of the Pastel allele. Because the (PP) genotype is visually different from the hetrozygous pastel genotype (Pp), the prefix Super- is applied to this appearance.

In dominant genetics the dominant homozygote (SS) looks no different than the hetrozygote (Ss).

This means that you can never be 100% certain with simple breeding experiments that you have a homozygous spider. You could breed a normal to a spider and see if you only got spiders year after year.

If you got 3 clutches which had all 8 spiders you could be pretty statistically confident that you had a Spider with a homozygous dominant genotype (SS).

The chance of not producing a normal from a Ss x ss in 24 offspring would be over 1 in a million.

By now someone ethier has a spider that only produces spiders or we dont fully understand the genetics of the trait.....(ie something else is going on so that the SS genotype is not produced)

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I know this- i refer to it as super.. .....

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

I'm saying maybe they arent idoits for giving him "heat"...they are just curious and want to know. I agree with you that if they are making baseless accusations while pressuring him that this is a stupid behavior. But only if they are doing that.....everything else seems just like curiousity to me.

Not trying to twist your words...I think I just misunderstood them. Thanks for clarifying your position and what you meant.

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I hate to break it up, but I just had to add my thoughts in here too.

I think it's downright rude to harass anyone because you're 'curious'. These aren't your animals, and you have no right to expect all information to be given to you when you demand. If you are that curious, go and ask the source and accept the answer. Don't go posting all over about not knowing or playing devil's advocate with someone else's livelihood.

Of course that's just me........ :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by tigerlily

I hate to break it up, but I just had to add my thoughts in here too.

I think it's downright rude to harass anyone because you're 'curious'. These aren't your animals, and you have no right to expect all information to be given to you when you demand. If you are that curious, go and ask the source and accept the answer. Don't go posting all over about not knowing or playing devil's advocate with someone else's livelihood.

Of course that's just me........ :rolleyes:

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Sorry....no harm intended.

Hey I agree with you that most people are going to be very curious, but I don't think people go about the best way to assauge that curiousity. I think these questions are going to get asked, but a better way to ask would be ask the breeders directly. No not all information is going to cross our paths immediately, but it will come out eventually. In either case.... So much information is out there, and most of it from these big breeders who have pioneered this industry. It's not like they are forever withholding information, but dispensing it once they have a reasonable certainty.

Hey, what do I know. :confuzd: I'm still so new to this stuff, and am not an expert by any means. :oops:

I like pie!

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

This has been hashed over a couple of times on this site ... search around for the full discussion.

But, the bottom line is, spiders were proven in 99 ... but since it was a brand new project, only a small number of girls were produced ... you figure if all goes well 3 years to raise up the girls to breeding size ... producing the first possible super spiders in 2002 ... no visual, so now you gotta figure what's going on ... some of those spider (possible supers) were surely sold because Kevin was probably figuring that he just "missed" (who knows if the people that bought them actually bred them, killed them by accident, or what) .... keep some of those males and breed them in 2003 ... maybe there were all spider clutches in 04, and then again, maybe Kev just missed? ... maybe he picked the wrong males to breed ... since they all do look alike, it's not easy, and 1 year for males/3 years for girls isn't always as easy as it sounds ... neither is always getting clutches from the girls you put boys with ... or having enough girls to "dink" in large scale while you're still trying to run a business ... all that aside, if there were some all spider clutches from possible super spider males in 04 or 05, with all of the heat that Kev is getting from "internet experts" *cough*idiots*cough* would you think he'd be willing to come running to a message board and scream "I did it! I did it!" when he could have just gotten lucky in the odds game? OR do you think he'd want to do those same breedings again for another season just to be sure ... so that the "internet experts" don't have any "ammo" to fire off conspiracy theories with ... Based on the timeline ... if all went perfect, 05 or 06 should be that "second year" ... if "all went perfect" ... the rub about working with live animals, is that nothing ever works out how you'd like ... they always have a way of humbling you.

Just my :2cent:

-adam

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Thanks for the summary Adam, I should be more diligent in searching, as always appreciated :)

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It's not like they are forever withholding information, but dispensing it once they have a reasonable certainty.

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When has the pioneering breeder ever publicly broke any even marginally negative information about a morph first? If we waited for them we still wouldn't know about spinning spiders, pearl life expectancy, or het piebald indicators. What do we still not know about now?

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

When has the pioneering breeder ever publicly broke any even marginally negative information about a morph first? If we waited for them we still wouldn't know about spinning spiders, pearl life expectancy, or het piebald indicators. What do we still not know about now?

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Psstt.... We're talking about releasing information on a possible super spider. Nothing negative there. :rolleyes:

Hey Bryan, I like pie too. I could go for some Chocolate Creme myself. :D

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Originally Posted by RandyRemington

When has the pioneering breeder ever publicly broke any even marginally negative information about a morph first? If we waited for them we still wouldn't know about spinning spiders, pearl life expectancy, or het piebald indicators. What do we still not know about now?

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Who's "we"? ... do you own a spider, woma, or pied? Well, I do and I was given all of the scoop about each mutation at the time of my purchases ... the breeders obligations are to their customers first, and good breeders bend over backwards to make sure their customers are taken care of. So as far as information coming out, it did ... just because you specifically didn't get it or it wasn't released on a message board doesn't mean it's not out there. Believe it or not, the ball python world is MUCH larger than internet message boards ... over 1/2 of the top breeders in the biz don't even post on the internet ... so what does that tell you.

And what exactly do we know about het piebald indicators? That some hets have them and some do not but no one knows for sure in what ratio? That animals with the "marker" are sometimes normal? That CH imports come in from Africa every year with the “marker”? That the exporters in Africa that are breeding ball pythons themselves now and that know ball pythons better than any five US breeders put together totally ignore the “marker”? That even possible hets with the "marker" don't prove to be hets? That the 3 largest producers of pieds in the world can't even agree on what the "marker" may or may not be? That every breeder that has tried to prove out a het pied "marker" from possible hets has not been able to come up with anything conclusive? Yeah, that's good stuff! :sweeet:

Your best bet, if you're really "curious" as Mendel discussed above is to pick up the phone and call some of the big breeders ... they'll talk to you, for the most part they're all really great people! ... You'll definitely get a lot farther with a phone call than message boards. :sweeet:

-adam