Wobble Gene

[KitaCat]

My first morph Ball python is a Spider with slight wobble. I knew that spiders could wobble, but I'd never watched any videos showing it, or seen one in person. It was pretty hilarious to see him bobbing his head back and forth like crazy when we went to see/buy him. After getting settled into his new home, he wobbles a lot less, so it seems to be a stress-linked thing, at least for him.
Most of the time he's fine - until his nose bumps into a surface, and then his head bobs quickly from side to side. My boyfriend has nicknamed him "Gord Downey" after the singer in the Tragically Hip, who does a similar head bob. Lol

Anyway, I'm in the school of thought that if it doesn't impact their quality of life, then there is no problem. I am prepared for the possibility of having to euthanize hatchlings who are "trainwrecks" to the point of being unable to eat. It doesn't seem like it's terribly common to be that severe, though.

[blue roses]

My guy is a spinner blast and shows no wobble except when he telescopes while he is swallowing his meal. I reasoned that this is because he is young and his muscles aren't at full strenggth yet. I would love to breed him to an enchee firefly, when he's ready, i'm in no rush, would this work to keep the possibility of a wobble low. I know there is spider in the morph i have, thats why i am not breeding spinner blast to spinner blast, even though i love this morph , its my favorite.

[MarkS]

I am going to quote this post, because I have six snakes with the spider gene in my collection and only have one snake that shows a hint of wobble, (Spinner male) he is a voracious eater and is fun and inquisitive and is my sons favorite snake.

The point I am trying to make with this is it does exist but is very overblown in my opinion with some people even having an agenda.

I'm glad you've had good luck with yours but you wouldn't think it was overblown if you've hatched out any that were hard core train wrecks. I've hatched a few like that, one female that could NOT eat unless I held the rat up against the side of her neck, another one that always needed help shedding because it just couldn't coordinate itself well enough to crawl out of it's own skin (and also needed help feeding). MOST spiders I've produced in the past have been fine and I currently DO have spiders in my collection, but only because of the other genes they carry. I'm not against spiders, most of the morphs look great. But all things being equal, I'd prefer not to have to deal with them in my collection.

I suspect that most people who own spiders wonder what the fuss is all about but then again I suspect that most of the real train wrecks never leave the breeders facility so the general public never gets a chance to see them.

[paulh]

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?

2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

[MarkS]

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction?

2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

well, I don't think question #2 would be possible to answer. There has never been a homozygous spider produced and it's suspected that homozygous is lethal so it wouldn't make any difference breeding brother to sister.

[paulh]

well, I don't think question #2 would be possible to answer. There has never been a homozygous spider produced and it's suspected that homozygous is lethal so it wouldn't make any difference breeding brother to sister.

Question 2 is not designed to produce a homozygous spider. It is designed to collect supplementary genes that minimize the wobbling into the end population. Think 10-15 pairs of supplementary genes.

[MarkS]

So you think it's possible that you could 'breed it out' of the spider morph? It's worth a shot I suppose, but it should be noted that spiders that barely wobble at all will produce spiders that wobble a LOT.

[Daigga]

After reading over this thread, I thought up some questions.

1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?

I don't think anyone knows. I haven't heard of anyone doing any kind of scans on the brain to find out, but there is plenty of evidence to point at it being a neurological tick and not just a misfire in the eyes or labial pits.

2. If there were 20 generations of brother spider mated to sister spider and only the least wobbling spiders were selected to produce the next generation, could that make a difference in the amount of wobbling?

I wouldn't have much hope for this project. Snakes with no noticable wobble have been known to produce train wrecks and vice versa. The severity of the parent's wobble doesn't seem to have an effect on the wobble of the offspring. I'd like to believe the wobble could be bred out, but seeing as spider is one of the oldest established morphs among ball pythons and the wobble still exists, I don't know that it's possible to do.

3. Could a vitamin/mineral supplement added to the parents' diet minimize wobble in spider babies?

This I have no clue. To my knowledge BP keepers don't use much dietary supplements since there usually isn't any kind of need, so I don't think anyone could tell you if it helps or not. If it's a neurological/genetic disorder, I honestly don't know if supplementation can be used to suppress symptoms in individuals, let alone the offspring.

Question 1 might be worth a doctoral dissertation. At 2 years per generation, question 2 is about a 40 year project. Question 3 might be the easiest to answer.

Focusing on the males could cut the time down some? 6-9 months makes a male generation. I would be interested to see someone pursue these questions and find out a little more about this sometimes nasty side effect and how to curb it.

[C2tcardin]

I would think if it were possible to breed out the defective gene it would have been done by now especially in light of how long this morph has been around and how many people have them. To my knowledge it's still one of the most popular and common genes out there on the market. Another argument against being able to breed it out is the fact that all Spider morps can trace their lineage back to one wild caught snake, there has never been another wild caught spider.

[OhhWatALoser]

Question 2 is not designed to produce a homozygous spider. It is designed to collect supplementary genes that minimize the wobbling into the end population. Think 10-15 pairs of supplementary genes.

With there being at best scattered data of spider x spider pairings at all, zero data about those offspring in relation to the homozygous spider, question 2 is asking quite a bit.

Honestly I wouldn't see why we couldn't, supplementary genes or epigenetics, you would figure something would start to show through, but it is unknown what it is and how long it could take.