Recessive and co-dominant

[Nvar]

Ok. I'm still trying to understand the dynamics of all this. My questions is, if I breed a simple recessive (Pied) to a co-dominant (Blue-eyed Lucy) or dominant (Spider), will I get 100% looking Lucy's and Spider's? And will they all be Pied Hets?

I get simple recessive but loose it with the dominant/co-dominant pairing? Once I get this down, I can try to grasp the double recessive, etc.

Arrggg.....
__________________

1.0 Spider BP ~Yoko~
0.1 Pied BP ~Miki~

[cinderbird]

If you breed a visual pied to a BEL (lets say the BEL is a super Lesser) you will get all lessers 100% het pied.

if you breed a visual pied to a spider, you will get normals 100% het pied and spiders 100% het pied.

From what i understand, a co-dominant animal is an animal that has a super form (ie can carry two copies of the gene and look physically different from the single gene carrying animal). A Super lesser/BEL has two copies of the lesser gene. A super pastel/opal has two copies of the pastel gene. A super, when bred to a normal, gives every offspring one copy of the morph gene because each parent gives one gene. So the offspring are all guaranteed to at least have one copy of the mutated (morph) gene (from the super parent) and one copy of the normal gene (from the normal parent in this case).

Dominant is a morph that has no super (someone -please- correct me if im wrong) such as the pinstripe and the spider.

The eaisest thing may be to make a punnet square. (i made this one real quick). Because an animal needs two copies of the pied gene P to be a visual, all offspring here would be HET pied because they are the product of a visual pied breeding.

[Nvar]

Thanks very much for the explanation! I have made the punnet squares but where I get lost is how the parental genetics come in to play.

For example, you state "if the BEL is a Super Lesser" I'd get Lessers 100% het pied. Also, I'd get normals from the Spider/Pied pairing.

Where I'm confused is when does a morph "start from scratch" so to speak with respect to potentially creating new morphs via the punnet square? Or does it ever? Sorry as I know I'm being somewhat confusing but, I guess my basic question is, why is a BEL a Super Lesser and not just a BEL if a BEL is co-dominant?

My Spider came from a Bumblebee and normal paring. Will the Bumblebee potentially come out in a pairing of my Spider with something?

Thanks again for helping me understand this confusing subject.

[wolfy-hound]

A bumblebee is a pairing between a spider and a pastel. So..
A spider produces half of the babies as spider(50%)
A pastel produces half of the babies as pastel(50%)
A bumbleebee results when one baby gets the jackpot of both a gene from the pastel, and the spider. It's all in the odds.

A new morph is a mutation of a existing snake.. just a quirk of the genes at birth(hatching or fertilization if you will). So a new morph could potentially hatch out of any egg at any time. Yes, it's tremendously long odds that any of us will have some new morph poop out of otherwise normal eggs, but that chance does exist(however remote). Then you have to hope it proves genetic, and passes on to offspring so you can replicate it.
Hope this helps.

[rabernet]

Don't forget to review this awesome stickied thread right here in BP Morphs & Genetics!

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=52847

[Brandon Osborne]

You have to think of it like this....

Consider the Lesser a het....for BEL. So when breeding Pied X BEL, you are creating double hets.....Lesser 100% het pieds. It's the same as breeding a BEL to a normal except, they are all 100% het Pied.

Same with the Spider gene, but since the Spider is not considered co-dom, what you get would be Spider het Pieds and normal het Pieds.

So, when breeding a co-dom or dom to a recessive, think of it as breeding the co-dom to a normal......only all of your offspring will be het for the recessive.

As for your Spider coming from a Bumblebee, it is just a spider and nothing more. Bees are a Pastel X Spider combo. Pastel works on the same principle as the lesser gene......meaning, Pastel is the visible het form of the Super Pastel. I hope this is all making sense. A bee will never come out of your spider unless you breed it to a pastel....which is what makes bees.

[Nvar]

I've read that sticky and studied the chapter on genetics in Kevin McCurley's book, The Complete Python. Where I get lost is how far back you go in the family tree in performing your analysis of what potential offspring can be.

My Spider came from a Bumblebee and normal. A Bumblebee is from a Spider and a Pastel. I don't know what a Lesser is made up of but I can imagine there's a number of things in it's family tree. Do you need to consider all the past genetics in looking to the future? If so, how do you do that using a punnet square?

Wooo..... If I knew I was going to have this interest, I would have taken a genetics course in college (LOL).

Thanks.

[Nvar]

Brandon - Thanks. I was posting my last response while you were posting yours. I think I'm getting closer. Here's my question. Why do you say that the Spider is just a Spider and nothing more? What is the difference between a Spider and a BEL (based on what I've read, I think a Spider is dominant and a BEL is co-dominant)? In other words, why is a BEL not just a BEL since it is co-dominant? Is it a function of whether they were bred from another morph or a random occurence?

[kellysballs]

It can be confusing at first but if you are in school take a basic bio class and it will help alot. Or just pic up a bio book and read the section on meosis and genes.

Okay for your question. Technically if the pastel gene and the spider gene occur on different chromosomes or far enough apart from each other on the same chormosome you have a chance to get normals, spiders, pastels and bumble bees out of a bumble to normal pairing. However I am not sure if this is actually the case so if someone who has bred a bumble bee to a normal could chime in I would appreciate it.

Here is a punnent square for bumble bee to normal:


It looks to me like you have a 25% chance of each egg being either a normal, spider, pastel or bumble bee.

[ScottyDsntKnow]

Brandon - Thanks. I was posting my last response while you were posting yours. I think I'm getting closer. Here's my question. Why do you say that the Spider is just a Spider and nothing more? What is the difference between a Spider and a BEL (based on what I've read, I think a Spider is dominant and a BEL is co-dominant)? In other words, why is a BEL not just a BEL since it is co-dominant? Is it a function of whether they were bred from another morph or a random occurence?

From what I understand, this is how it works...

Think of Co-Dominant as incomplete dominant. Co-dominants have a visible heterzygous form and a different homozygous form which is the "super". For example a BEL is the homozygous form while a lesser is a het. Most people don't think this way but all pastels are hets, all cinnies are hets etc...

For a true dominant like a spider there is no "super" form, the gene is considered completely "dominant" since only 1 gene brings out the full visual characteristics of the morph. Most spiders you'll see for sale are only het spiders and since they are visually identical to the homozygous form the only way to prove out the homozygous animal is through breeding.

As for recessives, ONLY the "super" is visual. Hets look normal although some people claim that there are markers for this and that out there but if you buy a 100% het for X recessive trait you had better buy from a reputable breeder so you know what you are getting.

Check out this page for about as cookie cutter an explanation as there is.