Desert! To FAIL or not to FAil??????

[snake lab]

I still think the flatline is a highly reduced killer clown combo personally but thats for another thread lol. As far as deserts go. They have been worked with for years. Pro exotics couldnt get females to reproduce and they worked with them like crazy. A male is worth his weight in gold in my oppinion. The combos using the desert is sick. Now trying to draw a parallel to the deserts and an entirely different species is like comparing a car to a truck. 2 totally different things

[J.Vandegrift]

I still think the flatline is a highly reduced killer clown combo personally but thats for another thread lol. As far as deserts go. They have been worked with for years. Pro exotics couldnt get females to reproduce and they worked with them like crazy. A male is worth his weight in gold in my oppinion. The combos using the desert is sick. Now trying to draw a parallel to the deserts and an entirely different species is like comparing a car to a truck. 2 totally different things

I would expect males will soon be dropping quite a bit as well. When only 25% of the snakes the male produces are really worth anything I can't imagine people will continue to pay a high price for them. I know I personally wouldn't.

[oskyle1567]

So even if you have a multi combo dessert female it still will not breed? Say 3 different genes and the desert?

[Domepiece]

It has been worked with alot longer then alot of people think. And it doesnt look good. I just dont understand why there is still a price tag like there is on desert females. They still hold around 1000 dollars which is nuts for an animal that cant breed

100% agree, its absurd.

[RobNJ]

So even if you have a multi combo dessert female it still will not breed? Say 3 different genes and the desert?

Short answer is no...this has been posted around in a few forums, and this post by Nick Mutton sums up what you're asking.

"Originally Posted by Nick Mutton View Post
Adding more genes wont help, I dont understand why this gets brought up so often.

All morphs are essentially defective genes, we may like the visual results but they are caused by broken genes that are not doing their job(s) properly.

If a gene is broken in such a way as to interfere with female fertility, how on earth is adding even more defective genes going to help? Thats just not a realistic possibility.

Morphs dont fix other morphs, its that simple.

The reality of breeding exclusively for morphs is that some have baggage. Genes do multiple and often seemingly unrelated jobs. So when a gene is not doing its color/pattern job correctly, its likely not doing any of its other jobs correctly either. While most often this may be benign, on occasion this disruption in the genes other responsibilities may have unfortunate consequences.

Just think about what all of us are actually doing. We are engaged in a what amounts to a race. A race to create animals with as many defective genes as possible!!!

Why then is anyone surprised when some of these animals have problems or issues?

I enjoy morphs myself and have pile so of them but the desert is not the first morph with possible issues and it certainly wont be the last.

Nick"

[WingedWolfPsion]

If the desert mutation makes females infertile, then it doesn't matter what you add to it, no.

As for whether I would have one...maybe. 25% of what you produce will be infertile, but it will still be alive, and a good pet. Basically, all of the females come 'pre-spayed'...

That means deserts will be more rare than other morphs, which may mean their value will be higher. What you perceive as a flaw may actually wind up making them more valuable in the long run. If a morph were produced that, for unknown reasons, reproduced itself only 25% of the time instead of half the time when paired with a normal, would you say that it wasn't worth working with?
I doubt it.
This issue all depends on your perspective.

I would imagine eyes will be turning back now to the almost-forgotten desert ghost.

[RobNJ]

I would imagine eyes will be turning back now to the almost-forgotten desert ghost.

Where does the desert ghost come in play...you're talking a dominant gene vs. a recessive, really no relation at all as to which is popular and why.

[Jabberwocky Dragons]

Short answer is no...this has been posted around in a few forums, and this post by Nick Mutton sums up what you're asking.

"Originally Posted by Nick Mutton View Post
Adding more genes wont help, I dont understand why this gets brought up so often.

All morphs are essentially defective genes, we may like the visual results but they are caused by broken genes that are not doing their job(s) properly.

If a gene is broken in such a way as to interfere with female fertility, how on earth is adding even more defective genes going to help? Thats just not a realistic possibility.

Morphs dont fix other morphs, its that simple.

The reality of breeding exclusively for morphs is that some have baggage. Genes do multiple and often seemingly unrelated jobs. So when a gene is not doing its color/pattern job correctly, its likely not doing any of its other jobs correctly either. While most often this may be benign, on occasion this disruption in the genes other responsibilities may have unfortunate consequences.

Just think about what all of us are actually doing. We are engaged in a what amounts to a race. A race to create animals with as many defective genes as possible!!!

Why then is anyone surprised when some of these animals have problems or issues?

I enjoy morphs myself and have pile so of them but the desert is not the first morph with possible issues and it certainly wont be the last.

Nick"

This is not true. Morphs are mutations. Mutations can be defective but they can also be extremely beneficial... think X-Men . In all seriousness though, mutations are what drive evolution, can be beneficial or defective, and viewing them as a race to defectiveness is a poor way of viewing incredible morphs.

It is extremely unlikely but it is not impossible that adding a second mutation can cancel out the harmful effects of the first. Two ways that come to mind:

1) The Desert gene mutation creates a Stop codon which ends translation and causes infertility. Adding a second gene creates a mutation that changes the stop codon to a different, harmless codon that does not affect fertility.

2) Some amino acids have several different codons that code for them. The desert gene mutates a single nucleotide in females that creates a codon that causes infertility. The second mutation changes another nucleotide in the same codon to either create an original pre-desert amino acid or a new one that doesn't affect fertility...

Both of these scenarios are extremely unlikely but it is possible for another mutation to fix a mutation. I don't think this is the case for the desert morph and hadn't planned on jumping in but I couldn't let the morph = defectives comment go.

[RobNJ]

mutations are what drive evolution, can be beneficial or defective

While I'm in no position to argue genetics, I've always been under the impression that adaptation drives evolution, not mutation.

[satomi325]

While I'm in no position to argue genetics, I've always been under the impression that adaptation drives evolution, not mutation.

Both will drive evolution and can go hand in hand. Without mutation, many know species wouldn't be alive today. Because of their ancestor's mutation, they were selected to survive just as they can be selected to die if that mutation wasn't advantageous.

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