A Lesson in Basic Genetics

[paulh]

There are no codominant traits in ball pythons.

Pastel + mojave makes pastave where the two colors blend together.
If they were codominant there would be parts of the snake looking like a pastel and parts looking like a mojave.

The pastel and mojave genes are not members of the same gene complex. A pastave has two gene pairs of interest--a pastel gene paired with the corresponding normal gene and a mojave gene paired with its corresponding normal gene. Only genes of the same gene complex can be codominant/incomplete dominant. So pastave does not count.

Codominance = Parts of the snake having one appearance and parts of the snake having a different appearance. This definition is inaccurate.

The Burmese cat (c^bc^b) and the Siamese cat (c^sc^s) have different colors because the c^b and c^s genes produce different amounts of melanin. Pictures of Burmese, Siamese and Tonkinese cats can be found in Wikipedia. The Tonkinese cat (c^bc^s) is intermediate in color because each color cell has a c^b and a c^s gene and each gene does its own thing. The two genes are codominant instead of incomplete dominant to each other because each gene produces a functional gene product.

The only snake genes that I would call incomplete dominants in the strict sense are the amelanistic and hypo genes in the corn snake. Until other genes are characterized, we don't know for sure which are codominants and which are incomplete dominants. And arguing about which term to use is pointless.

[Ronniex2]

Thanks 1100000 i was just thinking of how i am going to deal with looking for a new mate for my snake and now this read has made the search much more clear.

Thanks again!

[Dbluedevil02]

I am very new to the snake world and trying to learn. I see all the posts naming different types of morphs , but I am having a little trouble differentiating them... How do you visually depict what morph the snake is? The very common ones I see are

Spider
pinstripe
pastel
Axanthic
lesser
GHI
Fire
cinnimon
mojave
Ghost

if I’m looking at a snake at the store, how can I accurately depict what it is?
thank you for your time on any/all responses

[Godzilla78]

Spend hours and hours on www.morphmarket.com and you will be an expert in no time.
Just lock up your credit cards and your paypal account while you are browsing. Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[artgecko]

I am very new to the snake world and trying to learn. I see all the posts naming different types of morphs , but I am having a little trouble differentiating them... How do you visually depict what morph the snake is? The very common ones I see are

Spider
pinstripe
pastel
Axanthic
lesser
GHI
Fire
cinnimon
mojave
Ghost

if I’m looking at a snake at the store, how can I accurately depict what it is?
thank you for your time on any/all responses

The ones you listed, with the exception of fire, are all pretty easy to visually differentiate. Some of the other morphs, like yellow belly for example, are harder to determine.

I would research on morph market and WOBP and note the visual characteristics of the moprhs you are interested in. Odds are, if you see a BP at a store and it looks "normal", then it is a normal and not a morph. I would also advise buying from a good breeder vs. a store, as they can give you background info on the snake, tell you about feeding habits, parents, etc. But again, check reputations before you buy from anyone either here or on the fauna classifieds BOI.

[BeansTheDerp]

super duper helpful! bit confusing but just what I was looking for!

[snakesRkewl]

The pastel and mojave genes are not members of the same gene complex. A pastave has two gene pairs of interest--a pastel gene paired with the corresponding normal gene and a mojave gene paired with its corresponding normal gene. Only genes of the same gene complex can be codominant/incomplete dominant. So pastave does not count.

Every single visual mutation that we work with is incomplete dominant, there are zero codominant traits proven in ball pythons. Codominant will not blend like incomplete dominance when added to another mutation. Pastel is incomplete dominant, as is mojave. Each on their own, incomplete dominant traits. Codominant would be if we added pastel to mojave and sections of the snake would look like a mojave and section would look like a pastel. Instead they blend together. That is how incomplete dominant traits work.

[paulh]

Every single visual mutation that we work with is incomplete dominant, there are zero codominant traits proven in ball pythons. Codominant will not blend like incomplete dominance when added to another mutation. Pastel is incomplete dominant, as is mojave. Each on their own, incomplete dominant traits. Codominant would be if we added pastel to mojave and sections of the snake would look like a mojave and section would look like a pastel. Instead they blend together. That is how incomplete dominant traits work.

As I wrote in post 101 in this thread, pastel and mojave are independent genes. Only different versions of the same gene can be dominant/recessive/codominant/incomplete dominant to each other. Normal/pastel/super pastel is relevant, and normal/mojave/super mojave is relevant. The relationship between pastel and mojave is not relevant.

Strangely enough, if you look at Burmese, Siamese and Tonkinese cats, the Tonkinese (the heterozygous cat) is intermediate in color between the other two. Just like pastel ball pythons are intermediate in color between the normal and super pastel ball pythons. And the Siamese and Burmese genes have been identified as codominant to each other for decades.

Definitions tend to change over time. The USA National Institute of Health's genetics glossary lists only codominance. See https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Codominance. There is no listing for incomplete dominance. Red/pink/white flowers have been considered an instance of incomplete dominance. The human A, AB and B blood types have been considered instances of codominance. Now, both are listed as forms of codominance in the NIH glossary. That turns "codominance" and "incomplete dominance" into synonyms and makes this discussion moot.