What are the odds?!

[coldbloodaddict]

"Het" means it is a recessive gene and the animal carries it but does not show it. So axanthic for example is recessive... It takes 2 copies of the axanthic gene to show but if the snake only has one it is then a het axanthic.

Het is short for heterozygous. Het is the colloquial term for individuals that carry the gene for recessive traits.

(That is the most basic description, I am no genetics master, so if any bigger breeders would like to correct me, please do so!)
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Het is not just used to describe recessives. so that is not a good way to explain it.

Pastels are Hets too but they don't look like Normals...


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[Pythonfriend]

Het is not just used to describe recessives. so that is not a good way to explain it.

Pastels are Hets too but they don't look like Normals...


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no, pastels are not hets. pastels are heterozygous for pastel, but they are not hets. they are pastels.

het is only used for recessives.

scientific term || every day term
heterozygous axanthic || het axanthic
homozygous axanthic || axanthic
heterozygous pastel || pastel
homozygous pastel || super pastel

if the homozygous form is called a super, then the heterozygous form carries the same name, just without super. so there are no super albinos, and no het pastels. if you say "het pastel", you strongly imply that super pastels dont exist, and that a breeding of a pastel to a normal would result in a clutch that is uniform and consists of het pastels, so it just doesnt make much sense. people will be reminded of the guys that try to sell normals as "het spider" on craigslist.

when you want to talk science, write it out and say "heterozygous". and only ever use "het" when its about a recessive. just like you only use "super" when its about a homozygous incomplete dominant.

[OhhWatALoser]

Since we are getting technical.

[internet nazi]

Hetrozygous just means it carries one gene. It may or may not affect phenotype. But even some 'recessive' Hets do look different from non Hets.

- Butter Mojave Leucistic has 1 butter and 1 Mojave gene. But since both genes lie on the same genetic loci, they do make a homozygous form.

The prefix het means different, the prefix homo means the same. heterosexual vs homosexual being terms more people are familiar with. So heterozygous means the 2 alleles are different, homozygous means it is the same allele. A butter/mojave BEL is a heterozygous form, just neither are the normal allele. Getting ridiculously technical, butter and mojave are the same gene, but different alleles.

no, pastels are not hets. pastels are heterozygous for pastel, but they are not hets. they are pastels.

"het for" doesn't really make much sense when you think about it. It is not heterozygous for pastel, it is heterozygous pastel. I know it is used all the time, but still.
[/internet nazi]

I do get a chuckle out of the "look at the craigslist ad" posts and they make fun of the poster for terminology that is actually more correct. Regardless of the animal being wrong. While I would never say het pastel in everyday conversation, I think it is important for people to realize they actually are in fact hets and understand what het and homo really are. How many people have you met that had different rules for odds of breeding, depending on if the morph was classified as dom, co-dom/inc-dom, or recessive? Understand what het and homo really is and you can see the classification means nothing, all morphs work the same.