mojave = lesser ?

Can anyone explain the difference between a lesser and a mojave? From what I've seen they both look pretty similar. And the homozygous form of both is a blue eyed lucy. Seems to me that they are just different lines of the same gene.

Kinda like a cinnamon and a black pastel. Different names for the same gene. It has to be the same because when they are paired the homozygous version is the supper cinny.

Am I missing something?

TIA,
Jennifer

Can't really explain the difference in a way that would make since but they are definitely not just different lines of the same snake (like black pastels and cinnys)

Personally I dont really know how to explain it to you but I wish I could.

Mostly I'd just say lessers are MUCH lighter, tend to be a more goldish color where as the Mojaves have browns/grays and such in them as well. Look at a picture of a lesser and a mojave next to one another and they're VERY different. Now if you want to know something that's close and harder to tell.

Look at the difference between a butter and a lesser...that's where I'd say more people get confused, but personally, neither mojave or butter can match a lesser. :)

Here's my butter which looks alot like a lesser
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...M07Daytona.jpg

And here is my mojave
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...ungle/MOJO.jpg

it's probably more obvious in person but Mojaves are darker and have a distinct pattern which is the single dots in stead of alien heads. But cross the two and you get a blue eyed Lucy!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Holbeird

neither mojave or butter can match a lesser. :)

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I gotta disagree with you there. Butters have a nicer yellow color and get better with age. I'm sure the lesser owners will have a different opinion but ask someone who has both and they could give you a fairer evaluation. :cool:

Don't get me wrong lessers are very hot!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by westcoastjungle

I gotta disagree with you there. Butters have a nicer yellow color and get better with age. I'm sure the lesser owners will have a different opinion but ask someone who has both and they could give you a fairer evaluation. :cool:

Don't get me wrong lessers are very hot!

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Of all of the butters/lessers I've seen, lessers have just always taken the cake, but I must admit, you have one of the most gorgeous butters I've ever seen :)

Now your butter is prettier than some of the lessers I've seen, but when you compare the entire morph (good, bad, and ugly) It just seems to me the outcome, in my humble opinion, is that lessers are better (ascetically) Then again that may just be my taste

Quote:

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Originally Posted by westcoastjungle

But cross the two and you get a blue eyed Lucy!

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But that is what has me confused - how can 2 different genes cross to create a lucy? They have to be the same to create a homozygous morph.

Jen

As far as I know butter, lesser, mojave and phantom all are het. for BEL therefore different variations for the same gene. Since they all have the gene they can all make BEL's when crossed with each other.

What seems to me to be going on with mojave and lesser is that they are _different_ mutant versions of the _same_ gene (i.e. alleles). The differences and similarities are both important.

Usually we know of only two versions of a gene. For example the mutant striped version and the normal for striped version of the same gene at what we might call the striped locus. I think the human ABO blood types are examples of a gene that has more than two versions. It's looking like for some reason the white snake complex gene (probably need a better name for that, especially since some of the supers aren't so white, like the homozygous phantom) has a bunch of different versions.

Evidence to support lesser and mojave being mutations of the same gene includes MKR reportedly only producing lessers and mojave from their cross line leucistics bred to normals. If they where two different genes like the pastel and cinnamon that combine to make pewter then some normals and leucistics would also be expected.

Evidence to support the mutations themselves being different even though of the same gene include the two lines looking distinct still after lots of outbreeding to a variety of normals. If the initial differences where just family resemblance in the founders the lines would have been lost by now through breeding to so many normals and probably in some cases the same normals bred to both lesser and mojavies. Even if it turns out that it might not always be possible to tell the darkest lesser from the lightest mojave the lines them self are still distinct with the average lesser looking different than the average mojave in spite of some possible overlap.

some interesting things to note,


lesser combos look different than mojo combos.

the lucy's from mojo's look different than ones from lessers.

butter and lesser combos look the same, as do the lucy's they produce.


can you tell which one is a butter, or a lesser?

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...6/9/850701.JPG

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...6/9/850702.JPG



just some thoughts.


vaughn

My guess is the yellower one is Butter Pastel, am I right? I said that because from most pictures of Butter I've seen, Butter tend to have yellow hue in them.

Thanks - that's where I was going. I figured it had to be the same gene if crossing them producted the same result. The ABO blood types is a good example - multiple alleles for the same gene. That would also mean there are more then 4 possible combinations and in this case give mojave, lesser, butter, BEL and ?

don't forget ralph davis' phantoms make BELs and so do Vincent Rosso's snake
http://www.cuttingedgeherp.com/nss-f...tLuckyNorm.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kavmon

some interesting things to note,


lesser combos look different than mojo combos.

the lucy's from mojo's look different than ones from lessers.

butter and lesser combos look the same, as do the lucy's they produce.


can you tell which one is a butter, or a lesser?

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...6/9/850701.JPG

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...6/9/850702.JPG



just some thoughts.


vaughn

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just some bad a-- bp's!!! There smokin Vaughn:D

I also think the thing that turns a lesser into a platy is yet another version of this same gene. And there is also the mocha. Possibly even the special to make a crystal (or maybe different, not much evidence one way or another on that as yet unseen animal). So, just listing the ones with good public evidence and with a possible double listing for butter and lesser which might or might not be the same mutation I suspect the following are all different versions of the same gene:

lesser
butter
mojave
phantom
Vin Russo high lemon yellow
mocha
the otherwise hidden gene that turns a lesser into a platy

Why there would be 7 or possibly more different mutations of this particular gene I don't know. It must be at the center of some very interesting chemistry. I even recently started to wonder if cinnamon and black pastel could also be in this group. Need some breeding results to test for that.

Has anyone even heard of breeding results from the black snake produced by crossing cinnamon and black pastel when bred to a normal? If only cinnamons and black pastels are produced and the two types are pretty distinct then those two are probably alleles with each other regardless of if they are in the same complex as the above list.

top is a butter, bottom is a lesser. I think. If Im right do I get them??? They are gorgeous Vaughn.

It would also be interesting to take the crossed BELs(lesserXmojave, etc) and put them to a normal and see what falls out.

I wonder if there are more than one gene involved.....

Jennifer

MKR did that last year and reportedly produced a large number of just lessers and mojavies (no normals and no leucistics). RDR had done this already with a lesser X phantom leucistic (karma) with the same sort of results but the reported MKR sample size was large enough to support the results not being a fluke. This tends to prove that only one gene is involved (close linking is also possible but doesn't seem likely). The consistent differences in apperence between mojave and lesser after much outbreeding tends to indicate two different mutant versions of that one gene - i.e. a multiple mutant allele complex.