What are the odds?!

[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.

[T&C Exotics]

I seriously hate threads like this. They get blown way out of proportion and become idiotic. Let us make this really simple. In Ball Pythons in general the term het means gene carrier for a recessive gene. The exceptions right off the top of my head would be het highway, het red axanthic, het ivory, and het russo. There are more I am sure but as a GENERAL rule it is used to express that an animal carries a single copy of a gene that is recessive and would require 2 copies of said gene to express said trait. Reality is that we in this industry use all terms incorrectly constantly because that is what has been done since it all started. No one is going to change it so stop the bickering about the little details and stick to what is used in the industry and not what should be used or how you view it. A pastel is technically a het super pastel but not one single person uses that term so it is moronic to use it. Everyone uses het albino so it is moronic not to use it. Pretty simple question that needs a simple answer and not a huge thread to define something that is already incorrectly defined within our industry.

[OhhWatALoser]

@ satomi325

going a bit offtopic, but to whom it may concern:


i agree that pastels are het super pastels, because here the het and the super somewhat cancel each other out, and its still understandable.

i have seen breeders actually sell fires as "het black eye leucistic" or as "het super fire", and i have seen breeders sell yellowbellys as "het ivory".

but can you give me cases where breeders advertise a pastel also as het pastel? or a yellowbelly also as het yellowbelly? or a spider also as het spider? or an ivory as a yellowbelly?

the actual use of the shorthand "het", in natural language, like on this forum and on breeder websites, is really limited to recessives. except for exception you pointed out, "het super XYZ". once you leave the scientific realm where language is really precise and delve into natural language, other rules apply, break them, and you sound like you are from mars. and actually you dont leave that territory but carefully avoid doing so in your own post which kinda proves my point

but now we are delving into linguistics. the method used to prove stuff in linguistics is really different from the natural sciences. to prove that a certain expression is used in a certain way, you start with a large sample of text in that language, search for all instances of that expression in the text sample, and check for context. searching the internet for the string ball python "het pastel" gives you one craigslist ad for a het pastel, a sentence that says "there is no such thing as a het pastel", a het pastel cornsnake, a het pastel boa, and a pastel het orange ghost BP, you get the idea. only 2270 results in total. that is quite a failure, with that data no linguist will challenge you when you say "het pastel" is not part of the english language.

now for ball python "het ivory" you get 15100 results, checking for context reveals most of them refer to yellowbellys. searching for yellowbelly ball python "het ivory" gives 11900 results, which confirms it, and shows that there is a contextual link. for comparison, ball python "het albino" gives 72700 results. of course these numbers are not worth much on their own, you need to sample the context of the search results and see if its actually being used in the way you expect.

Literally must no longer literally mean literally.

I seriously hate threads like this. They get blown way out of proportion and become idiotic. Let us make this really simple. In Ball Pythons in general the term het means gene carrier for a recessive gene. The exceptions right off the top of my head would be het highway, het red axanthic, het ivory, and het russo. There are more I am sure but as a GENERAL rule it is used to express that an animal carries a single copy of a gene that is recessive and would require 2 copies of said gene to express said trait. Reality is that we in this industry use all terms incorrectly constantly because that is what has been done since it all started. No one is going to change it so stop the bickering about the little details and stick to what is used in the industry and not what should be used or how you view it. A pastel is technically a het super pastel but not one single person uses that term so it is moronic to use it. Everyone uses het albino so it is moronic not to use it. Pretty simple question that needs a simple answer and not a huge thread to define something that is already incorrectly defined within our industry.

I see nothing wrong with people understanding lingo vs actual terminology. Less confusion in the long run.

[paulh]

I seriously hate threads like this. They get blown way out of proportion and become idiotic. Let us make this really simple. In Ball Pythons in general the term het means gene carrier for a recessive gene. The exceptions right off the top of my head would be het highway, het red axanthic, het ivory, and het russo. There are more I am sure but as a GENERAL rule it is used to express that an animal carries a single copy of a gene that is recessive and would require 2 copies of said gene to express said trait. Reality is that we in this industry use all terms incorrectly constantly because that is what has been done since it all started. No one is going to change it so stop the bickering about the little details and stick to what is used in the industry and not what should be used or how you view it. A pastel is technically a het super pastel but not one single person uses that term so it is moronic to use it. Everyone uses het albino so it is moronic not to use it. Pretty simple question that needs a simple answer and not a huge thread to define something that is already incorrectly defined within our industry.

In most snakes the term het usually means a gene carrier for a recessive gene. This is because for many years all known mutant genes in snakes were recessives. But then some codominant mutants turned up. (For a breeder's purposes, codominant, incomplete dominant, semidominant, and half a dozen other terms are synonyms.) And now we know of a few dominant mutant genes. (A creature with a dominant mutant gene paired with a normal gene looks like a creature with two copies of the dominant mutant gene.) Terminology is not keeping up. For a breeder, the snake with two copies of the mutant gene is worth more than a snake with only one mutant gene in the gene pair. This is another case where the term "heterozygous" is useful.

People in the industry use genetics terms incorrectly so often that I've tended to minimize their use. So I will write that a lesser ball python has a lesser mutant gene paired with a normal gene. This to to be accurate while not confusing people. It is also a bit frustrating to have to use this sort of baby talk.

[paulh]

Terminology is regressing rather than not keeping up. Only nine words are necessary for most genetics discussions:

Genotype
Phenotype

Homozygous
Heterozygous

Normal (AKA wild type)
Mutant

Dominant
Codominant
Recessive

And fairly easy circumlocutions can substitute for the first four terms. Only the last five are really required.

[Drift]

Like I hinted at... 'correctness' entirely depends on context and the intended audience.

I do not "hate" these kinds of discussions. Separation between technical definition in professional context and colloquial use is a natural part of how languages evolve.

However, I think it's important that people understand where their vocabulary originates from.

I will simply state that if you stated something as "het" to a biologist, they will always know what you are talking about, regardless of what phenotype the gene is linked to, however, if you are specifically talking about ball pythons to a community of ball python owners, the term carries different implications, but perhaps this is not true for all reptile communities.

This is a natural attribute of languages, and you cannot escape it, or deem one term superior over another. Languages evolve, and they will continue to do so, and it is largely dependent on the context in which it is used and accepted.

From a traditional perspective, all we can do is educate people on the origins of their vocabulary in an attempt to differentiate between technical definitions and common definitions.

From a progressive perspective, we must use the language that suits its audience so we can communicate effectively.

Simply put, language and definitions are not absolute.

Now let's move onto a more fruitfull topic, since the original question has been answered long ago... The original poster can't do his own punnett squares... Who wants to volunteer a lecture on multi-gene mendellian ratios?

[Lubana]

Did I open a can of worms, or what? (Yikes)! Sorry, you guys... I thought it was a question that could just be answered;I didn't realize that it was a topic of debate. Now I'm confused, and you guys are arguing.

[OhhWatALoser]

Did I open a can of worms, or what? (Yikes)! Sorry, you guys... I thought it was a question that could just be answered;I didn't realize that it was a topic of debate. Now I'm confused, and you guys are arguing.

The argument is hobby lingo vs the rest of the world. Don't worry about it. The answer to your question is right here:

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

[Drift]

Did I open a can of worms, or what? (Yikes)! Sorry, you guys... I thought it was a question that could just be answered;I didn't realize that it was a topic of debate. Now I'm confused, and you guys are arguing.

It's cool... There are faults in most terminology if you look hard enough. The important thing is that people can discuss it , and recognize where the lines between definitions exist.

Like I said, language evolves. The 'correctness' is defined mostly by the context in which it's used. This discussion is fine, and it's cool that people can at least draw attention to it without resorting to name-calling or childish squabling.

Vocabulary is subjective, and the best you can do is understand where it originates from, and to know where terms originate so when people deviate from social norms you still know what they are talking about.