A Lesson in Basic Genetics

You can copy and paste it into another document . . . I did when Judy posted this 2 years ago. Then you can print it out if you want to.

It's still the best piece on explaining genetics. I use it all the time to help others understand. Thanks again Judy.

Wow thank you so much! It will be a while before I get into breeding (if I ever do) but the info is still so valuable! Plus now I have a better idea of how people are getting what they are!

wow that is what I have been looking for a great break down of the genetics of ball pythons thanks for writing this.

lance

great post:) that info is priceless and another example of why bp.net is what it is:)!!!

Who needs biology! lol
I had a fantabulous time reading it. Loved the visuals ::gj:

i think you just saved me a few years of college by teaching me the one thing i wanted to learn in one shot lol now i can concentrate on buisiness courses lol thank you for saving me some $$ massive kudos

Hi I am kind of new to this and I was wondering what het means as in het albino and what morph would I get breeding a male norm and a honeybee female

Thanks for this information, very helpful and informative. i just have a question i have been wondering about. when you breed ball pythons, do the morphs have any deficiencies as far as the immune system, etc or are they the same as the normal breeds?

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Originally Posted by bigray2110

Thanks for this information, very helpful and informative. i just have a question i have been wondering about. when you breed ball pythons, do the morphs have any deficiencies as far as the immune system, etc or are they the same as the normal breeds?

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I have the same question. Is the breeding for morphological changes producing mutations that negatively impact the overall robustness of the species? Or is there enough diversity within the existing gene pool that dilution will not be a problem?

We see these types of problems in dogs. Why not in snakes?

Hi,

I am soooo not the person to answer this but I'll have a crack at it. :oops:

The first thing to clear up is that we are not breeding for mutations at all.

All the base morphs we know of originated in the wild. We may combine them to make designer morphs but that's all we can do. I don't think I have heard of anyone having a morph spontaneously created in a captive population, proving out WC snakes yes, but not generating something new.

Likewise all the morphs that do have some kind of problems ( spiders wobble, caramels can kink, cinamons and black pastels can have duckbills, BEL's can have bug eyes etc. ) are the way they are without man interfering.

If people spend enough generations breeding for traits then it is possible that they will create a situation similar to what we see in dogs but we are not even at the beginning of that process yet.

There also seems to be a difference between mammalian genetics and reptilian in terms of robustness to mutation and copy errors but I , honestly, do not know enough about this to even have a guess at reasons and results.

So, to answer your question as best I can, the only problems with mutations are the ones nature dealt out and aside form the known problems the animals themselves seem to be just as robust and healthy as the wild type.

But, as noted in the dog question, we are only just at the very, very beginning of this process and most, if not all, the morphs haven't been around long enough to truly know how their lifespan compares to the wild type etc.


dr del