Breeding a spider with a severe wobble

[Serpent_Nirvana]

The wobble is most likely inherent to whatever genetic mutation causes the spider appearance. The same protein defect or malformation or what have you that causes the pattern to be altered also causes the neurologic disorder, in all likelihood. It is also possible that the two genes are tightly linked, and that they are two different genes, but can never (or almost never) be separated.

If the latter were the case, then if a different individual founder spider had been discovered in the wild, it's possible that the defect may not exist. If the former is the case, however (if the defect is inherent to the mutation itself), then any spider found would have had the defect.

Breeding certainly did not cause the neurologic disorder. It does, however, perpetuate it.

To the OP, I would not breed a spider with severe neurologic signs. Conventional wisdom states that the "disorder" part of the spider gene exhibits variable expressivity, which means that some spiders will have it really bad and some will be barely noticeable. This has been proven to be true; however, I'm not entirely convinced that it has to be. I think that it may be possible to "fix" the mode of expression of genes with supposedly "random" expressivity through generations of careful selection.

I base this mostly on two things ... One is that, in various livestock breeds, there are pattern types that are "fixed" into a breed, like the white belt in belted Galloway cattle or the "medicine hat" in certain paint horses. I believe that many of these pattern types are fixed variants of a "piebald" type pattern that would otherwise be expressed randomly, as in our piebalds. (And yes, I do believe that, with many generations of line breeding, it would be possible to fix lines of high or low white pied ball pythons.)

The other thing I base it on is that, in my simple way of thinking , the way in which these "random" genes are expressed has to be controlled by something. NOTHING in nature is truly random. If you break it down, it could pretty much either be genetic, or environmental (right? Or am I forgetting something obvious?). Since different individuals in a clutch will all exhibit different levels of expression, I don't think it is environmental. I think it's entirely possible that it could be genetic, and if it's genetic, it could be selected for. ("It" being those modifier genes that are otherwise "silent," but that influence the expression of another trait.)

So I guess my line of thinking goes like this: The spider gene is fantastically popular, and no matter how many people decry the breeding of all spiders as unethical, the gene is everywhere, it's in a zillion combos, and it isn't going to go away any time soon. However, we as breeders still have a responsibility to the heath and welfare of these animals. In my mind, therefore, even though I can't prove that the "wobble" can be bred out, I think it's worthwhile to at least try and select for animals without severe neurologic signs in an effort to try and improve the "breed" (morph) -- since I don't think they're going anywhere any time soon.

Is my logic flawed? Yeah, woefully so ... But there it is for ya.

[Subdriven]

I agree.. if all breeders do NOT breed spiders that have severe wobble and check the next generation of clutches and only breed the spiders from that clutch that show no or little wobble and keep this going we may end up with spiders that DO NOT wobble.

but if we keep breeding these severe cases we KNOW that that will be passed along to some of the babies, and this keeping the wobbles going!

[Subdriven]

I would like to film my bee eating and film the only sign of wobble IF I can catch it so I can SHOW any potential buyers of my spiders or spider morphs what the father has so there is no question if I'm lieing about the wobble or not. This way any potential buy can know that the parents of there snake is not one like those video's!

[Freakie_frog]

i'm no breeder (nor do i have any snake breeding knowledge) but i can say that i could not knowingly breed anything that has any kind of defect.

All Ball Python Morph's have a "defect"..it's what makes them look different..So to say you couldn't knowingly breed anything with a defect is your choice but it means you'd need to steer clear of all morphs all together.

[TessadasExotics]

I would say its a guessing game. Thats one thing though that you dont want her young to carrry. The wobble though could decrease with age also though. When I had my spider male he didn't have one at all when I got him as a hatchling but at about 6 months his got real bad and he ended up dying from sever neurological disorder, he couldn't stop flipping on his back so I had to have him put down at the vet, couldn't leave him suffering. So with spiders you truly never know what your going to end up with.

Kind of hard to die from a sever neurological disorder if a vet puts the animal down. That is putting out erroneous information by making that statement. The Spider died because you didn't want it any more. I have seen serious train wrecks that do just fine.
just my

[SlitherinSisters]

A spider with severe wobble can throw spiders with little wobble and spiders with little wobble can throw spiders with severe wobble. It's all a roll of the dice. Every spider has wobble so if someone says "my spider doesn't have wobble" they haven't looked at their snake close enough. I say breed her. Unless she has a wobble that makes her corkscrew out of control, there's no reason not to breed her.

[cinderbird]

I agree.. if all breeders do NOT breed spiders that have severe wobble and check the next generation of clutches and only breed the spiders from that clutch that show no or little wobble and keep this going we may end up with spiders that DO NOT wobble.

but if we keep breeding these severe cases we KNOW that that will be passed along to some of the babies, and this keeping the wobbles going!

Except the wobble doesn't work this way. The problem is that the spider gene and whatever causes the wobble are CONNECTED. If you have one, you have the other. There is no option for separation (ie selectively breeding the wobble out).

Breed a "low wobble" female spider to a male pastel, you get some bumblebees and spiders that wobble a lot, possibly going as far as to label them trainwrecks. What do you do with those babies? Keep them? euthanize them? Sell them?

Maybe one of the babies from that scenario is another "low wobble" animal. Its a male. You breed it to 3 females , lets say a normal, a pastel and a pin. You end up with some low wobblers and some medium wobblers and some high wobblers. What do you do with the babies?

There just hasn't been a way to separate the two.

I read a wonderful article, or heard something on reptile radio about how melanin production is linked to neurological disorders. (See also jaguar carpet pythons, like spider balls they have reduced melanin.) I'll see if i can find the article.

[rabernet]

Except the wobble doesn't work this way. The problem is that the spider gene and whatever causes the wobble are CONNECTED. If you have one, you have the other. There is no option for separation (ie selectively breeding the wobble out).

Breed a "low wobble" female spider to a male pastel, you get some bumblebees and spiders that wobble a lot, possibly going as far as to label them trainwrecks. What do you do with those babies? Keep them? euthanize them? Sell them?

Maybe one of the babies from that scenario is another "low wobble" animal. Its a male. You breed it to 3 females , lets say a normal, a pastel and a pin. You end up with some low wobblers and some medium wobblers and some high wobblers. What do you do with the babies?

There just hasn't been a way to separate the two.

I read a wonderful article, or heard something on reptile radio about how melanin production is linked to neurological disorders. (See also jaguar carpet pythons, like spider balls they have reduced melanin.) I'll see if i can find the article.

Exactly - and like I said earlier in this thread - the degree of wobble is as random as the degree of white on a pied.

You can have a low white pied throw high white pieds, and vice versa.

Same with spiders. You can have minimalist wobblers throw train wrecks and train wrecks throw spiders with barely detectable wobbles.

If the wobble could have been selectively bred out of the spider and all spider combos, it would have been done already.

[Serpent_Nirvana]

If the wobble could have been selectively bred out of the spider and all spider combos, it would have been done already.

You think so? After a whopping few dozen generations of breeding at most (probably far fewer in reality, despite the spider being one of the most prolific mutations)? It takes many generations to "fix" a polygenic trait like the genes controlling how much a spider wobbles could potentially be ... Not to mention the fact that AFAIK, no one is really actively trying to breed it out. No one has a breeding program specifically dedicated to trying to eliminate or temper the trait. Somebody may breed one "no-wobble" spider or two, but then they get one or two "train wrecks" out of it, get discouraged and give up.

I am aware that the wobble is either a pleiotropic effect of the spider gene, or so tightly linked that it may as well be. So I do doubt that you can ever get rid of it entirely. But would it be theoretically possible to selectively breed spiders that minimally express the "wobble" part of the spider gene? I think so ... But it sure isn't likely to happen any time soon, maybe ever, especially if conventional wisdom keeps telling people that it's okay to breed "train wrecks" because the gene is "random."

I don't know if this really could work at all ... To my knowledge, "it" (trying to minimize the deleterious effects of a gene by selective breeding) hasn't really been tried before in animal breeding. In most mammal breeds, if you've got a defect, you try and just breed it out and eliminate the bad gene entirely. With spiders, we can't do that, because the bad gene IS the good gene. So if we want the bad to go away, we'd have to work on modifying the other genes that control the "bad" expression.

I think of it like selectively breeding for any other trait ... Take the yellow in pastels. The yellow is a trait inherent to pastels, but clearly there are other genes controlling how much it's expressed. You can select for those genes and breed brighter and brighter pastels over generations ... Or you can say, "Well, I think it's all random" (like I believe was done when the morph was first getting off the ground, in order to sell the ugly ones) and keep getting ugly pastels.

BTW, I hope this post didn't come off as confrontational ... I'm not trying to be argumentative, because this is all speculation. However, I do kind of hope to dissuade people from breeding "train wreck" neuro snakes if possible. It is well and entirely possible that I am wrong, and that the degree of expression of neurologic derangement in spider ball pythons is determined by factors that cannot be selected for or against. However, even if there's the slimmest little chance that I'm right ...... It'd be worth not breeding a "train wreck" and keeping those "bad" modifier genes in circulation.

[DC Reptiles]

Kind of hard to die from a sever neurological disorder if a vet puts the animal down. That is putting out erroneous information by making that statement. The Spider died because you didn't want it any more. I have seen serious train wrecks that do just fine.
just my

First off the only reason I put him down is because he could not eat anymore. Even with assist feeding he was throwing it back up, dont you tell me I didn't want it anymore when you dont even know me. I believe in a quality of life, and spend the rest of your life in the state he was in..in my eyes in wrong.