What are Pieds? (Jinx)

[whispersinmyhead]

As far as genetics goes and it's relation to ball python breeding, this is a hobby for most and profession for some. We have people in the hobby at many levels with a wide range of education and experience. A agree that an in depth scientific study to determine the nature of mutations would be the answer and help us define a proper labelling system. This is not realistic though. Too many morphs to study and who is going to invest the money for the research. The results of such research will not be quickly proven out either I assume. I am by no means an expert in genetics or ball pythons for that matter.

Personally I think the big issue is, we are using labels that many believe to be carved in stone or fit the scientific mould. This is not necessarily the case because morphs are proved out by many without scientific background. So the building blocks of our labelling of genetic traits is already a little shakey IMO. To say there hasn't been a mistake or mislabelled morph is lazy. I think this discussion (both sides of it) is fantastic. We are using these labels to help us with breeding projects and give those of us whom are not geneticists, a grasp on what is happening and expectations for breeding projects. It also play a part in marketing.

IMO most morphs are correct and this pied subject has arguments on both sides. I believe inc. Dom may prove better fit because there seems to be subtle and not so subtle visible differences in the het. I think if a handful of breeders did a breeding project to normals and documented the findings it could provide the proof that is required to satisfy the community. As it stands there is evidence that can't be ignored to warrant such a project to prove this out.

At the end if the day this is a challenging but healthy discussion and may inspire a project for breeders willing to sacrifice some time and resources. Genetics is a complex subject and has been perhaps oversimplified for the purposes of describing ball python morphs.

I think most has been said here but an objective breeding project among several breeders would help settle the debate.

[bunnykit]

As far as genetics goes and it's relation to ball python breeding, this is a hobby for most and profession for some. We have people in the hobby at many levels with a wide range of education and experience. A agree that an in depth scientific study to determine the nature of mutations would be the answer and help us define a proper labelling system. This is not realistic though. Too many morphs to study and who is going to invest the money for the research. The results of such research will not be quickly proven out either I assume. I am by no means an expert in genetics or ball pythons for that matter.

Personally I think the big issue is, we are using labels that many believe to be carved in stone or fit the scientific mould. This is not necessarily the case because morphs are proved out by many without scientific background. So the building blocks of our labelling of genetic traits is already a little shakey IMO. To say there hasn't been a mistake or mislabelled morph is lazy. I think this discussion (both sides of it) is fantastic. We are using these labels to help us with breeding projects and give those of us whom are not geneticists, a grasp on what is happening and expectations for breeding projects. It also play a part in marketing.

IMO most morphs are correct and this pied subject has arguments on both sides. I believe inc. Dom may prove better fit because there seems to be subtle and not so subtle visible differences in the het. I think if a handful of breeders did a breeding project to normals and documented the findings it could provide the proof that is required to satisfy the community. As it stands there is evidence that can't be ignored to warrant such a project to prove this out.

At the end if the day this is a challenging but healthy discussion and may inspire a project for breeders willing to sacrifice some time and resources. Genetics is a complex subject and has been perhaps oversimplified for the purposes of describing ball python morphs.

I think most has been said here but an objective breeding project among several breeders would help settle the debate.

Probably the most soothing text to read for this poor brain of mine all day long. Very well written, I thank you.

As it is I got in contact with a breeder just the week before this, he is hatching out some pieds very soon, three clutches, and is selling the ones with low-medium white for around 530usd, which I think is fair. I like the medium-low better than the high white, I want to see some color on there as well.
Planning on grabbing at least one male from him for a future project, for the heck of it I might pick up two normalls and try this out.
They would be 100% het, and I will get some normalls from my spider when he breeds too.

The pied thing would be in a year or two though, most likely two. Planing on getting a pretty little girlfriend for my spider for the upcoming season as well, a little butterfire lady that will hopefully gift me with a nuclear spider - my dream morph.

[TessadasExotics]

As far as this realting to who has the most paid for education and the most years in breeding, I may nit have as much as some people here, this does not make my knowledge any less relevant. I have been following ball pythons since the 90's. I remember when pieds were being sold for 50k. I have talked and do talk to the biggest breeders. People who have created the world firsts. I have owned ball pythons (pied hets being the very first) for several years and have been breeding them for 6. That does not give me the most experience, but I do have experience.
One gene can influence others. I have said this before. Normals can and do look other than normal. Does this make them other than normal? Loik at Brents prospects for example. He goes through thousands of animals. How many of those actually end up being anything but? I bet a large majority. Again if a couple het pieds are put in a group of 20 or 30 "unusual" normals, I bet you that they could not 100% correctly be pulled out.
These experts have also failed to answer my question. I can pull out our het lavs from possible het and het breedings. Does this make them non recessive?
So little is actually know about the ball python mutations. We can guess all we want. I can tell you as theory based on my knowledge that the homo pearl and the spider sable probably suffer from a leathal frame shift mutation. One that causes damage to an esential function of a protein. Spiders probably suffer from a damaged protein that affects the nervous sytem.
I am not saying that nothing can change. What I am saying is that just because you think your right that it has to be because you have a phd or you know more than everyone else. Why confuse everyone else with your thoughts? Why muddy things up more. Prove out your theory dont just rock the boat.

[Theodore Tibbitts]

My opinion doesn't count for much: I am just a hobbyist who hopes to be a breeder who has taken AP Bio but has two biochemist parents and thus a lot of exposure to "sciency" stuff, but here it is:

My understanding of the Mendelian terms at use here is they are useful shorthands for phenomenon created by the presence or absence of a working copy of a given "gene". For instance, traditionally albinism is considered recessive, because it is a phenotype only shown when an individual has two copies of a non-working gene coding for melanin production or placement. If they have one working copy and one non working copy, in this case, the working copy serves just as well as having two working copies, so the heterozygotes cannot be distinguished and the trait is recessive.

For a dominant trait, instead it is a case having a single copy of the gene is enough to create a full phenotypic change. In this case the "gene" is usually a working protein that works different than a normal copy, if I am not mistaken, resulting in a different phenotype. In incomplete dominance, the effect of having two copies of the aberrant gene is more pronounced than having one copy.


All of this everyone should probably have some grasp of to be debating here, and it seems most do. Where it seems to be breaking down is what constitutes a true recessive versus an incomplete dominant. And that is part of the reason I went into detail above in to what it actually means at a molecular level: in all cases these genes are doing the same things, coding for proteins. There is no "marker" on a gene saying it is recessive or dominant, you can only judge by its effects in the animal.

My understanding is if it produces an effect in the animal as a heterozygote, it is dominant, codominant, or incomplete dominant. If it does not it is recessive. Period. If the heterozygotes are identical to homozygotes it is normal dominant. If they are an intergrade or otherwise different than the homozygites it is incomplete dominant. If there are multiple alleles all of which express as dominant on one locus they are codominant (probably no examples in BP, although honestly BEL complex genes sound like they may qualify - someone more knowledgabke than me should judge that).

So where does this leave het pied? Well, is het pied visually different than normals? Bunnykit and Tessedas seem to be saying either "No," or "I dunno" or "Not all the time." Travis and Brent are saying "Yes, but the difference is subtle. It is always there, but not always easy to tell."

I have no het pieds, and no experience with them. But I would say that if het pieds have actual, reliable phenotypic changes - even if those changes are very subtle, even if it takes an expert to suss them out, and even if some BP show those changes but aren't het pieds - then it is a inc dominant trait. BP are polygenic brings after all and you can't expect everyone to express every trait the same way every time, and the possibility of "false markers" is to be expected. It is hardly unbelievable that more than one gene might create train tracks or a ringer: more than one creates Axanthics, after all. But if het pied itself always brings about a set of changes which can be seen, then it is inc dominant, no matter how subtle.

If however het pieds don't show any consistent differences or changes, then it is recessive. But it seems to me pretty well established that pieds do have markers.

As far as being able to tell het lavenders, Tessedas, if that is true, well for one, congrats. And two, yes, if het lavs look different, then it too is a very subtle inc dominant trait. Without anyone else backing you up it might be hard to convince others, but hey, why bother? You can keep picking out your hets and go laughing all the way to the bank, confident in your knowledge the gene is influencing their phenotype when heterozygous and is thus by definition dominant.

[Royal Hijinx]

Ok, I am washing my hands of this thread, as I have little patience for the unreasonable.

Maybe Brant or Travis will have more to say, maybe not.

To the OP, hopefully your questions was answered satisfactorily, or at least enough information was provided for you to make an educated decision.

[paulh]

My opinion doesn't count for much: I am just a hobbyist who hopes to be a breeder who has taken AP Bio but has two biochemist parents and thus a lot of exposure to "sciency" stuff, but here it is:

My understanding of the Mendelian terms at use here is they are useful shorthands for phenomenon created by the presence or absence of a working copy of a given "gene". For instance, traditionally albinism is considered recessive, because it is a phenotype only shown when an individual has two copies of a non-working gene coding for melanin production or placement. If they have one working copy and one non working copy, in this case, the working copy serves just as well as having two working copies, so the heterozygotes cannot be distinguished and the trait is recessive.

For a dominant trait, instead it is a case having a single copy of the gene is enough to create a full phenotypic change. In this case the "gene" is usually a working protein that works different than a normal copy, if I am not mistaken, resulting in a different phenotype. In incomplete dominance, the effect of having two copies of the aberrant gene is more pronounced than having one copy.


All of this everyone should probably have some grasp of to be debating here, and it seems most do. Where it seems to be breaking down is what constitutes a true recessive versus an incomplete dominant. And that is part of the reason I went into detail above in to what it actually means at a molecular level: in all cases these genes are doing the same things, coding for proteins. There is no "marker" on a gene saying it is recessive or dominant, you can only judge by its effects in the animal.

My understanding is if it produces an effect in the animal as a heterozygote, it is dominant, codominant, or incomplete dominant. If it does not it is recessive. Period. If the heterozygotes are identical to homozygotes it is normal dominant. If they are an intergrade or otherwise different than the homozygites it is incomplete dominant. If there are multiple alleles all of which express as dominant on one locus they are codominant (probably no examples in BP, although honestly BEL complex genes sound like they may qualify - someone more knowledgabke than me should judge that).

So where does this leave het pied? (snip)

I've never bred ball pythons, but I've bred other snakes and assisted with mice, ringneck doves and pigeons when I worked in my university's genetics lab.

"My understanding is if it produces an effect in the animal as a heterozygote, it is dominant, codominant, or incomplete dominant. If it does not it is recessive. Period. If the heterozygotes are identical to homozygotes it is normal dominant." That is a pretty good understanding.

"If they are an intergrade or otherwise different than the homozygites it is incomplete dominant. If there are multiple alleles all of which express as dominant on one locus they are codominant (probably no examples in BP, although honestly BEL complex genes sound like they may qualify - someone more knowledgabke than me should judge that)." This part is off.

Different textbooks have different definitions for incomplete dominant, codominant, overdominant, semidominant, partial dominant, and other terms for genes that are not fully dominant or fully recessive. As far as a breeder is concerned, all of them can by lumped together as synonyms for simplicity -- if they are an intergrade or otherwise different than the homozygites it is incomplete dominant (= codominant = partial dominant = semidominant = etc.). For what it's worth, the prof I worked for used codominant because it had the fewest characters to write. Semidominant is almost as short.

From the pictures of homozygotes and heterozygotes I have seen, both lesser platinum mutant gene and the mojave mutant gene are codominant to the corresponding normal gene.

Codominance can be hard to prove. IMO, if someone inexperienced can pull out 95% of the heterozygotes from a bin containing all three genotypes, then the gene is codominant. But that requires listing the phenotypes of all three genotypes and keeping breeding records. How subtle are the differrences and how reliable are those phenotypes for identifying genotypes? In other words, beat the nay-sayers to death with data. I haven't seen such data. Till then I lean towards keeping pied classified as a recessive.

[satomi325]

Regarding markers. I personally think there are good and bad examples of 'hets' (specifically when regarding pied and clown) like any other WT or morph.
I posted a picture of normal het clowns previously. You can definitely see the clown gene influencing the normal phenotype.
A few are more obvious than others. I consider this equivalent to the example of Yellowbelly or Fire. Some people cannot distinguish a horrible example of a YB or Fire from a normal. But good examples stand out and pop.
These 2 morphs can be subtle alone, but do big things when combined with morphs. Same thing with these "hets". It's not that the markers or whatever traits aren't there. They are there. Just more downplayed and subtle compared to the better examples of it....

Just my $.02

[TessadasExotics]

So where does this leave het pied? Well, is het pied visually different than normals? Bunnykit and Tessedas seem to be saying either "No," or "I dunno" or "Not all the time." Travis and Brent are saying "Yes, but the difference is subtle. It is always there, but not always easy to tell."

I have no het pieds, and no experience with them. But I would say that if het pieds have actual, reliable phenotypic changes - even if those changes are very subtle, even if it takes an expert to suss them out, and even if some BP show those changes but aren't het pieds - then it is a inc dominant trait. BP are polygenic brings after all and you can't expect everyone to express every trait the same way every time, and the possibility of "false markers" is to be expected. It is hardly unbelievable that more than one gene might create train tracks or a ringer: more than one creates Axanthics, after all. But if het pied itself always brings about a set of changes which can be seen, then it is inc dominant, no matter how subtle.

If however het pieds don't show any consistent differences or changes, then it is recessive. But it seems to me pretty well established that pieds do have markers.

As far as being able to tell het lavenders, Tessedas, if that is true, well for one, congrats. And two, yes, if het lavs look different, then it too is a very subtle inc dominant trait. Without anyone else backing you up it might be hard to convince others, but hey, why bother? You can keep picking out your hets and go laughing all the way to the bank, confident in your knowledge the gene is influencing their phenotype when heterozygous and is thus by definition dominant.

That is where the problem is. All recessive ball pythons have het "markers" all of them. Everyone who breeds recessives can pretty confidently pick out their het hatchlings... so either these recessives are either recessive or they are not. It's not restricted to just pieds.

[Theodore Tibbitts]

So they aren't, then. What's the problem?

[Mike41793]

Ok, I am washing my hands of this thread, as I have little patience for the unreasonable.

Maybe Brant or Travis will have more to say, maybe not.

To the OP, hopefully your questions was answered satisfactorily, or at least enough information was provided for you to make an educated decision.

I may or may not have already had my own opinion made up before i even started this thread, or before i even asked you in that other thread... I may or may not have had any questions at all and just wanted to start a debate to see what others thought about it...

I've really enjoyed this thread though! Good job jerry!