Quote Originally Posted by kxr View Post
I'm sorry but seven thirty is right. I'm no geneticist but I do (pretty much) have a bsc in biology and I've taken my fair share of genetics courses. No if and no buts about it genetically the super spider has to exist. It must be possible that in some instances two alleles reside on the spider locus. This therefore means that either

A. In twenty years of breeding there has been no super spiders produced due to astronomically bad luck (highly unlikely)

B. Super spiders appear to be the same as spiders visually thus making spider a dominant trait and by chance no one has ever bred one of these animals or at least it has never been documented (this is possible but still highly unlikely)

C. Super spiders are lethal, it is possible that they fail very early on and the female simply reabsorbs the embryo, if that is the case you would never get to see these failed super spiders or high slug ratios, I suspect the clutch sizes would in general be smaller but I'm not sure if that's the case

Also I'm not sure who told you cinnamon was a combination of genes. I imagine you inferred this based on what it does in the animal but this is simply incorrect. It IS a single gene, the visual phenotypic expression of the gene is a result of the effect that gene has on the transcription of RNA, essentially proteins within the animal. These proteins CAN have multiple functions within the animal and that is POSSIBLY why you may see both a pattern and colour difference but this does not have to be the case.

Genes do not work in this manner, it is not as simple as saying gene A codes for pattern X and gene B codes for colour Y it is entirely possible that gene C codes for pattern X and colour Y.

Let me know if anything I said was confusing, I'll try to clarify


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I would suggest you take more classes. You, again are using an oversimplification of genetics. A "super spider" does not have to exist. You are assuming that genes can only exist in pairs which is simply not true. The spider gene when combined could have a deleterious effect leaving only a single copy of the gene. The animal would pass on its genes as a homozygote but would not be one. Genes, while usually found in pairs, can also exist as singles and even triples. I am not even saying that the spider gene is not lethal just that I am not sure it has been proven to be. The term lethal gene is a bit ambiguous in itself because at what point of development do they die? There seems to be a lot of different information on this. Sure we can speculate, but we have to realize it is nothing more than speculation.

The human genome consists of around 20000 genes, as a benchmark, and you think it is possible that there is a single gene that codes for color pattern and what ever other unseen affect the cinnamon phenotype presents? Even my example of a gene coding for pattern or color is an oversimplification, just more correct than a single gene responsible for the phenotype of a morph. Now these genes may be passed on together no the same chromosome, but they are not the same gene.