Wobble Gene

[Daigga]

I know this thread is getting a bit old now so maybe a lot of people have stopped reading it but i returned to it and saw the comments about trying to fix it with brother to sister mattings.

I am just wondering if some of the genetic problems in snakes (and indeed many pets) is actually due to inbreeding. In some animals it is avoidable due to the size of the genetic pool but in the issue of ball pythons where all known morphs can often be traced to a single animal surely it is the mother to son, father to daughter, brother to sister matings that has put the defect into the animal in the first place ?

No, not with this example. Bear in mind that due the issues around any pairing from wobble genes, such pairings are very rare (the super spider and wobble gene to wobble gene combos are said to be lethal). Knowing this, breeding spider gene carrying siblings together or back to the parents almost never happens just on principle. With these pairings being very few and far between, I would say with certainty that inbreeding was not a cause of the wobble, nor does it contribute to its continuation.