What are Pieds? (Jinx)

[whispersinmyhead]

Great thread minus the emotion. I am very new to ball pythons and genetics so I probably shouldn't even be posting. But post a shall.

I can easily see how can easily a pied can be seen as as recessive becuase I couldn't tell a het if my life depended on it. There are plenty of very sublt inc. Dom morphs that i think many would have considered recessive if discoverd in the bigginnig of ball python breeding. Time of discovery is an important factor with morph identification. Same line of thought as we "knew" the earth was flat until we learned later it was not. As we (as a hobby) work with this breed more, we are developing a better eye for genetics over time.

Perhaps my newbish approach is of value to the discussion because I don't have a very trained eye or a ton of experience. I believe the hobby is constantly developing a better eye for spotting morphs and differences from WT. Use me as an example. First looked at ball pythons a little over a year ago. I couldn't believe people were paying so much for what looked like normal ball pythons to me. I will use yellow belly as an example. I couldn't see the genes influence at all. It just looked normal to me. Sure I could see pastel, spider, clown etc. In one years time I could now identify many more morphs and combination with some confidence. I am seeing things I never saw a year ago. If I was in charge of naming I would have also claimed many of these to be traits recessive when I started, as I saw no visible change in "hets". I would have been prooven incorrect of course.

Now take my experience and apply it to time frame of the hobby. Forgive me I know pieds were discovered a long time ago but I don't know when. The hobby's eyes have seem countless new morphs since and has developed a better eye for subtlety. In my limited understanding, if you can reliably see a difference in a wild type, no matter how subtle, it is still a visible difference and therefore not recessive but incomplete dominant. Going back to older morphs such as pieds it is not far fetched for us to believe we can see details we were unable to see before. Markers are IMO a visible change in appearance from wild type like spot nose or yellow belly. (I realize these aren't super subtle but to someone new they are).

I think this conversation is very interesting and I think it is a disservice to the hobby not to reevaluate how we look at previously defined morphs. If we don't challenge ourselves we inhibit growth.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this post are my own and do not reflect those of BP.net.

[whispersinmyhead]

I would like to add that I think it is very interesting how much het pieds affect other morphs and the theory that it overpowers some Morphs visible traits seems very plausible and a good explanation. Just like only the spider head pattern in spider x pied.

[Mike41793]

I've always pronouced it 'lu-sis-stick'. I didn't realize people pronounced it different..

So do i, and a bunch of dictionaries lol. But lu-kiss-stick is correct as well

[charlene.payne]

I only skimmed through all ten pages so please forgive me if I repeat anything that has been said. I think sometimes ADD kicks in and I have a hard time focusing when threads are long.

I haven't been in the hobby long and actually this is my first year breeding and producing babies. I work with several "recessives". I'll use that term lightly because I am not sure that I completely believe we are working with 100% Recessive genes. I talk to Jerry Robertson (snakesRkewl) on a daily basis and have learned a lot from him on "hets" and have noticed a few things on my own too.

I believe that what we are seeing is actually codoms at play. The "super" form being the albino, pied, clown, hypo, etc. I believe that markers are indeed the "codom" form.

I have noticed on many of my het albino females that they very from your run of the mill normals. All my het albino females have high orange sides, increased white around the alien heads, and usually more busy patterns. Same with my het hypos. Typical markers I have seen on het pieds are the train tracks, reduced pattern, and ringers.

Yes, not all babies from Pied x Normal pairings, or Albino x Normal pairings, etc produce such extreme markers. But I have noticed that the het clowns can be picked out by a very untrained eye even. Not being in the game long has shown me that you can bet on a possible het and have that het prove out by knowing these markers.

I think as a community we do need to keep better records of these things and do some more experimentation. I also think we need to keep an open mind towards the possibility that how we have been labeling and seeing things in the ball python world, might indeed be different now.

I will continue to watch this thread and see any updates. I will try to get pictures to add to the discussion too showing my results.

[Slowcountry Balls]

I have only had one season of working with recessive genes. Pied and Hypo, and I combined them last year, so my experience is limited. That being said, I have noticed that my female Mojave 100% het Hypo is far lighter and has more intense blushings than my other 3 female Mojaves and 1 male Mojave and that my female Pied possible het Hypo (who proved to be het Hypo by producing 1.0 Pastel Double Het, 0.1 Hypo Het Pied, and 0.1 Pastel Hypo Het Pied) is significantly lighter than other Pieds of her size that I have seen. Also, a female Butter possible het Hypo that I purchased has maintained her bright and light colors far longer than other Butters that I have seen. So I can certainly agree that, in my limited experience, a "recessive" gene has appeared to have an influence more like an incomplete dominate gene would when combined with other morphs. However, with only having 3 animals that are all 100% het Pied, none of them display the classic heavy train tracks, but the heaviness of the train tracks may be reduced by the Pastel and Hypo genes, so I don't know that these 3 het Pied animals are the best to draw conclusions from. I am more confident in my observations about the Hypo gene in the het form than I am about the Pied gene in the het form.

[Coopers Constrictors]

..... Anyways .....

Travis and Brant have some damn good experience and knowledge in this stuff and I can't wait to see what comes out in the next few years. Having personally met Brant, and purchased a few of his Prospects, the guy has an eye for things... and a damn good eye at that... Travis is just, well, a Freaking genius at this stuff... and a darn good mentor... whether he knows it or not. This exact topic is what brings a lot of people into this 'lifestyle', per say, because of the interesting things that happens to these creatures and mysterious genetics behind it all.

Rock on guys.

[4theSNAKElady]

The problem is that the information that has been around for decades has been misinterpreted/misrepresented. What is happening now is that people are trying to set things to right and are meeting with the inertia that those decades of wrong/incorrect information have wrought.



.

Best statement yet.

[TessadasExotics]

Yes indead. Rock on. Lol

[interloc]

Yes indead. Rock on. Lol

By agreeing with that, you are rendering ANY points you made in this thread moot because YOU are being the wall that Travis, Dave and Brant are trying to break down. You have been disagreeing this whole time. Now for some reason you say that the problem is when people are trying to correct things, there are always people standing in the way who refuse to let go of the old ways. Stop being that person. Like I said before, things change. Deal with the change. Accept the change. Be the change.

[bunnykit]

HmmHmmHmm.... Reading through those ten pages hurt my brain. I won't comment on who's throwing stones in a house made of glass, but it pretty much covers everyone, most likely even myself.

Anyhow, I would be more interested in seeing a real gene test being done, not just on pied, het pied, albino and het albino, but on all kinds of morphs and on a large group of ball pythons.
People here talk about genes, but all we have to go on right now are visible changes, that can only be seen from the outside. Genes control EVERYTHING, outside in, personality, temperament, color, fertility etc.

As an example, in russia they have been breeding foxes for more then 50 fox generations, and the things they picked their breeding animals on was; How much did the animal like humans? They wanted to see, and prove out, how dogs had been breed from wolves and try out how fast you could achieve that.
For all those that starts to think this is unrelated, bear with me here.
They breed on temperament alone, but after a few generations, the 'kind' foxes started showing other traits, such as curled tails, floppy ears, new coloration's such as piebald, blaze, white socks etc. Their behavior changed, and they are now visible different from the 'wild' foxes.

So what is there to learn from this, and how is it relevant to this thread? My point is that just because some genes expresses color, and is related to color, that same gene controls more then just that simple color. Spider ball pythons tend to have the head wobble for example, because that gene controls more then just the withdrawal of color and pattern. It also controls things inside the animal.
Now, there are spiders with a 'bad' wobble, and spiders with almost no wobble, so there is a scale on how much the gene affect the animal. This change could be related to the other side of the genetic, since spiders are dom it means one gene on that pair, and for all we know the other gene might affect the wobble, or the combination or other genes from one or both or it's parents might. It might be random, it may not be.
Hets have one gene, just like spiders, and just like spiders they will show their gene and it's effect differently. Just like there are pattern and color variation within every morph, there will be differences in the hets too. In my eyes that is only logical.

Now I know there will be flames and fire because I just compared a dom to a het, but bear with me. What I want to compare is not (only) how much it shows or does not show, but rather how diffidently they may express themselves even within the same group. Also if you compare a spider to a het pied, then the het pied will in my eyes be a recessive and the spider without a doubt dom. There is a scale, and pied is inherited way more subtitle and invisible.

You guys keep obsessing over 'is it seen or is it not' and 'that means it is, it means it is not' but I don't think you see the big picture all together.
Genes control EVERYTHING, so if one gene is present, it might, and most likely will, affect more then just ONE thing.
Can het pieds have markers? Yes, they can. Is there a case, known cases, where there was NO markers? Yes, there have been. Where does that put us?

It is proven that markers is not a 100% way to identify a het, some morph hets are easier to identify because the color gene that causes the homogeneous form does have some more gene coverage than just that one thing, and thus it MIGHT, but is not GUARANTIED to affect other genes on different scales. Is it still a recessive? It is interesting to think about, and I think it is, but think about it like this;

Even though spider is not a het, I will use it for example once again (one of my fav colors, what can I say):

If a het pied have a ring, and a spider have a wobble, in the grand picture all that tells us is that the gene have more jobs than one or that the gene works together with other genes and creates a ripple effect. Can the one gene in a heterogeneous animal have any visible change and still be het? Yes, it can, in SOME cases, and in those cases it is based on what the OTHER genes are.
Don't forget the other genes.
The 'normal' genes and the 'pied' genes play together, and that is why I would love to see a real genetic analyse on several het pieds and similar morphs. Only then can you with certainly say you understand the GENES. I would love to see an gene analysis on a het pied with high markers, and one without any markers at all for example. I know the het pied gene would be there in both cases, but what about the other genes except that one/s? How do they play together?

As for the visual bit and the name for them....I liked the sound of 'expressed hets' - and I know at least one of you will spit fire and flames at the combo of those words since they do in fact contradict each other, but truth is that hets are not 100% certain to display any markers at all, and thus I don't consider it to be proven anything else than recessive.
In the case with markers the gene/s that was passed along played with the genes of the other part in the animal, causing some small, occasional visible changes, and some breeders that have seen many, many, many animals will have an easier time identifying a possible het, but this warning goes to ALL of you;

Until something is proven by more than your own experience overconfidence in your own ability will only do you harm, and close any paths in your mind to be open for new ideas.

Genes are not always simple. Genes can not always be understood completely by just looking at an animal, simply because we don't understand what the genes does exactly in the animal without a complete analysis, and I have yet to see any one here present such. One color morph have great variations, no matter what animal it is, and its only to be expected that hets may have variations too, this does not make them more or less het, but as with the other colors it may affect the end result in the animal, and what visual genes you can actually see in them.

....Yeah...I hope anyone understood where I'm coming from with this. Sorry for the long speech.