Line/Inbreeding

[Matt K]

I'm not meaning to pick a side, so please don't take it that way, but I'm pretty sure it has been proven that Spiders with severe wobble can come from outcrossing a "wobble-less" Spider with any other morph, and vice versa. I mean we don't really know what kind of mutation causes the Spider phenotype to be produced. A frameshift mutation will effect the translation of more than one protein at once, and it very well could be that the proteins being effected involve both the pattern and color of the Spider and the dreaded wobble. If this is the case you would have to pray for a random missense mutation on the base pair that causes the wobble, leaving alone the pattern and color of the morph. I think this would be very unlikely, and even if it were to happen, you wouldn't necessarily catch it. As others have said sometimes the wobble is so subtle it's virtually nonexistent. It would take a great deal of luck in this case to identify the true, "wobble-less" Spider from a "seems to be wobble-less" Spider, and then breed it out over several generations to prove it out. It's obviously not a mutation on just one base pair though, as the wobble and pattern both are so apparent, even after much outcrossing. Hoping for a mutation on a mutation seems like a fools game, especially as most Spiders seem perfectly happy and functional even with wobble present. All that being said I really wouldn't want you to fall back into the shadows over this, I'm sure there is no animosity over this. Differences of opinion happen everywhere, and not one of us will go uncorrected here. Heck, haha, I'm likely to have said something off here that is in need of clarification. If you think you can identify and eliminate the "wobble gene" apart from the pattern, I'm sure we'd all be happy to be proven wrong. I will warn you though that wobblers can and most likely will come from non wobblers, so don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out. People just get touchy when you mention that they are contributing to the downfall of what they love most, unless there is solid evidence behind the statement. Having an apparently wobble-less Spider does not prove that the wobble can be line-bred out, it's just not enough. I wish you the best though, and hope you don't feel discouraged by everyones reactions, it's only natural.

Cheers,
-Matt