Question for Bill & Tom & Anyone Else with "Specials"

[jluman]

From the Specials I've seen it would seem to be pretty easy to miss one, I mean it isn't like the "Special" was purchased as a morph in the first place. Same thing applies with the likes of "Het. Super Stripes" all morphs have good and bad examples so I don't think it's unreasonable at all to imagine that a "Special" and the "Daddy" Gene carriers are the same thing.

That said I look forward to seeing what a "Mojave Daddy" would look like if it isn't a Crystal.

I'll post pics when the mojave daddy (if I actually did hit one) is out of the egg. Even without it I am 100% sure that special isn't the same as the hidden gene to make a platinum.

The hidden gene/platty sib male that sired my platinum looks like a normal. I have produced offspring from hidden gene/platty sib x normal. All of the offspring looked normal. All of the platty sibs that Ralph have produced look normal.

I have not produced specials yet, but I have talked to Tom Baker about them multiple times. Tom says that the special hatchlings are obviously discernible from the normals in a clutch, and from the specials and combos that I've seen I believe him.

As an example of how visible the special gene is, here is a super pastel special:


Here's a regular super pastel for comparison:


I will agree that it's possible that the original special female might not have been the most obvious example of the morph. If I remember correctly, Tom got her as an adult. As an adult maybe she looked less obvious. I seem to remember seeing a pic once, but I don't remember what she looked like. As kind of a related example, here are two adult het russo girls:

This one looks kind of "mojave-ish" but a different color:


This one just looks more like it's just a light normal: