Could someone explain this to me?

[Urban Witch]

I'm messing with a Genetic Wizard to help me with my future breeding plans and I came across something I don't quite understand.
When breeding a Mojave with a Mystic Crystal (SpecialxMystic) the possible outcomes were: Mystics, Specials, Mystic Potions, and Crystals. No Mojaves, Mystic Crystals, Normals, or a possible 3 gene snake? Why is this? I thought I had a pretty good handle on genetics but maybe I was wrong.

[BCS]

I am guessing, and someone please correct me if I am wrong... but I think it has to do with the morphs acting like supers. And or they are allele. Kind of like the Vanilla x Fire which makes the allele Vanilla cream. Or a het red x cinnamon makes the allele gargoyle.

If I was to breed a vanilla cream to a fire I would get NO normals which is how a super would work. If I was to breed A vanilla cream to a mojave, I would get NO normals, NO mojaves and NO vanilla creams but I can get everything in between.

The special x mystic could be allele (although I have no experience with them) which means if you are to breed a mojave to a mystic crystal you would get no normals, no mojaves and no mystic crystals.

[Family Jewels]

Special, Mystic, and Mojave are good examples of allelic heterogeneity, meaning that (as far as anyone can tell) they all occur at the same locus. When an animal has two of these mutations, they are considered compound heterozygous. http://www.newenglandreptile.com/ind...cts-like-super

Lesser, mojave, butter, special, mystic, phantom (and probably a few others that I'm forgetting) all occur at the same location, and an individual animal can only have a maximum of two alleles per locus. This is why if you breed a BEL (lesserXmojave) to a normal, you cannot produce more BELs. The BEL can pass on lesser *or* mojave, but not both. Meanwhile, you could breed a Pastel Yellow Belly to a normal and produce more Pastel Yellow Bellies, because those genes are independent.

Only a maximum of two alleles can occur at a single locus, as each side is inherited from each parent. Think of homologous chromosomes like the right and left side of a ladder, and morphs are hanging out at each corner where a rung meets the side of the ladder. You could have two albinos hanging out on the 10th rung, a normal and a lesser sitting on the 1st rung, plus two pastels on the 2nd rung. That ladder would represent an albino super pastel lesser, right? That's because all those morphs occur at different loci (or "rungs") and the morphs on one rung don't have any effect on any of the other rungs. They don't care about each other. However, special, mystic, and mojave, etc. will only hang out on the 4th rung. They can't occur anywhere else, and each side of the ladder can only come from one parent. Hence, you can only have these possible outcomes:

"Mojave-Normal" bred to "Special-Mystic":

Mojave-Special (aka "Crystal")
Mojave-Mystic (aka "Mystic Potion")
Normal-Special (Special)
Normal-Mystic (Mystic)


I should point out that allelic heterogeneity (or compound heterozygosity) used to be relatively rare in ball pythons, but it is becoming more common as we discover more allelic traits... for example, a Highway ball is a Gravel-Yellow Belly and can therefore only pass on one of these two genes to offspring. Just like a Mystic Crystal (special-mystic), it is heterozygous for each trait, but it has no normal allele at that given locus, so it is incapable of producing normals.
http://www.newenglandreptile.com/ind...uper-balls/als

[Urban Witch]

That makes perfect sense! Thank you both so much.

[MidSouthMorphs]

I'm messing with a Genetic Wizard to help me with my future breeding plans and I came across something I don't quite understand.
When breeding a Mojave with a Mystic Crystal (SpecialxMystic) the possible outcomes were: Mystics, Specials, Mystic Potions, and Crystals. No Mojaves, Mystic Crystals, Normals, or a possible 3 gene snake? Why is this? I thought I had a pretty good handle on genetics but maybe I was wrong.

The Mystic Crystal is considered a "super form" and will not yield any normals and cannot replicate itself like the Bumble Bee, Firefly, etc. The same goes for the others including Crystals, BELs, Mystic Potions, etc.

[paulh]

.... Think of homologous chromosomes like the right and left side of a ladder, and morphs are hanging out at each corner where a rung meets the side of the ladder. You could have two albinos hanging out on the 10th rung, a normal and a lesser sitting on the 1st rung, plus two pastels on the 2nd rung. That ladder would represent an albino super pastel lesser, right? That's because all those morphs occur at different loci (or "rungs") and the morphs on one rung don't have any effect on any of the other rungs. They don't care about each other. However, special, mystic, and mojave, etc. will only hang out on the 4th rung. They can't occur anywhere else, and each side of the ladder can only come from one parent. ....

I agree with everything Family Jewels wrote except this ladder analogy. I've seen it in a number of herper web sites, but it is wrong. If we liken a DNA molecule to a ladder, then a gene is both sides of the ladder. The entire ladder comes from either one parent or the other.

There are two chromosomes in a pair of homologous chromosomes. Each chromosome contains a DNA "ladder". One chromosome in the pair comes from the mother, and the other chromosome comes from the father. One member of a gene pair is in the DNA in the mother's chromosome, and the other member of the gene pair is in the DNA in the father's chromosome. And by the way, ball pythons have 18 pairs of homologous chromosomes.

See http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook