What is a Normal Ball Python? Is there really any dominant morph?

[mricyfire]

Been doing quite a bit of research on this and just thought I would get the opinions of all.

What is a normal? It is the one morph that no matter what other morph you combine it with you will get normals. Now if dominants are really dominant than no matter what a spider x spider or pinstripe x pinstripe or granite x granite would only produce 100% of that morph, but this has not yet been done. The only ball that has accomplished this is the normals. Breed a normal to a normal you will get 100% normals. But here is what I don't understand. By breeding to normals to each other you would eventually get the pure normal (homozygous Normal), but this too has not ever been done, because a normal mixed with any other ball python will either give you a visible mutation from the co-doms and a Het for the morph it was crossed with. So this makes it that normals aren't proven dominant yet either. Here is what I just don't understand no matter what you do you will always get normals but this doesn't work vice versa, because not matter what normals you use you will still always get normals.

This just really makes me think.

Sources:
http://www.ballpython.ca/genetics.html

[mricyfire]

because not matter what normals you use you will still always get normals.

Except Recessive normals where you will get het. for the parent morph.

[lovepig78]

normals can be considered dominant like spiders.

there are rumors that BHB produced a super pin. but Brian didnt confirm when i asked him at a show...he told he had to wait to breed the "specimen"

and RDR produced wat looks like a super granite from breeding two of his genetic granites together so that maked them co-dom.

back to normals since they are dominant they wont produce a homo.

[bait4snake]

I think you're thinking too much... I think. lol

Ok, if Spiders for example really do make a homozygous spider that's indistinguishable from a heterozygous spider... follow this logic -

Let's say all ball pythons in their normal form were spiders. The bumblebee would be a Pastel, the Honey Bee would be a hypomelanistic. Now, let's say someone magically found this REALLY awesome morph called an "alien head"! It had more black striping on it's backs and on the sides, a nearly patternless head, as well as none of that white speckling up the sides!

If you bred that "alien head" morph to your normal (which is a spider), you'd get nothing but normals (spider) that were het for "alien head".

See, what we think of as a normal "alien head" ball python is actually a recessive gene to what we call a Spider. (this is all presuming you can make a homozygous spider that looks the same as a heterozygous spider)

Just my buck and a half.

[mricyfire]

I think you're thinking too much... I think. lol

Ok, if Spiders for example really do make a homozygous spider that's indistinguishable from a heterozygous spider... follow this logic -

Let's say all ball pythons in their normal form were spiders. The bumblebee would be a Pastel, the Honey Bee would be a hypomelanistic. Now, let's say someone magically found this REALLY awesome morph called an "alien head"! It had more black striping on it's backs and on the sides, a nearly patternless head, as well as none of that white speckling up the sides!

If you bred that "alien head" morph to your normal (which is a spider), you'd get nothing but normals (spider) that were het for "alien head".

See, what we think of as a normal "alien head" ball python is actually a recessive gene to what we call a Spider. (this is all presuming you can make a homozygous spider that looks the same as a heterozygous spider)

Just my buck and a half.

Im so lost

and lovepig I would def. have to see to believe...although if you showed me anything I would probably believe it. If you got pics of the super granite that would be cool.

[dr del]

Hi,


You can see pics of the super granite on this page - clutch 34.

It also gives the info which a straight picture link wouldn't.


dr del

[Kagez28]

every species has a "wild type" phenotype. the normal ball python is the wild type phenotype. it has a genome that is the basis that all mutations are based on. you have to look at things genetically. each feature that is considered a morph is more then likely on different alleles. the gene for hypo is different then the gene for spider. even if one is dominate or recessive, the are on different alleles which is why you can have double recessives and recessive and dominate traits in one snake.

i don't know if that makes any sense, it is late. genetics are pretty complicated, but i think you are making things more complicated. if you want to "get to thinking".... do a sudoku.

[darkangel]

I think you're going to give yourself a headache.

[mricyfire]

Lol just has always been on my mind...i dont think about it as much as you guys think...just been curious.

I have no idea how to play sudoku

[RandyRemington]

Normal is just the best combination of morphs selected so far for survival in the wild. As captive breeders, we are selecting for different morphs that we like better but nature has selected against.

I think part of the confusion here has to do with terms. Dominant is often misused. Dominant describes the relationship between two versions of a gene (alleles). Dominant is sometimes used where the word homozygous should be used. Homozygous means having a matched pair of alleles for whatever gene you are talking about.

Even if spider is eventually proven completely dominant to the normal allele of the spider gene you would need a homozygous spider X normal to produce 100% spider morphs. The spiders identified so far are only heterozygous for the spider gene (having an unmatched pair of alleles, one spider mutant and one normal for spider). As heterozygous animals they only have a 50/50 chance of passing the spider mutant allele on to each of their offspring. When breeding a pair of spiders together each also has a 50/50 chance of passing their normal for spider copy on so a 25% combined chance for each egg of not getting the spider gene from either parent. This is because they are hets and doesn't have anything to do with if the spider mutation is dominant or not.

All dominant really means is that the phenotype of the heterozygous and homozygous mutant are the same and both different from normal. It's the genotype (heterozygous or homozygous) that is critical for predicting the offspring. The dominant mutation type applies to the mutation (usually in relation to the normal allele of that particular gene) and doesn’t change from one snake to another. It would be incorrect to refer to a super pastel as the dominant form of pastel. Pastel is a co-dominant mutation because of the way pastels look in relation to super pastels and normals, it’s the genotype that changes between a pastel (heterozygous) and a super pastel (homozygous mutant).