Super Spider??

[WingedWolfPsion]

Hm, my only suggestions for that would be possibly try lowering the temperature a couple of degrees the last few days of incubation, and make sure they get more air than usual.
Apparently brooding females loosen their coils at this time and expose the eggs to the air, and the eggs' temperature drops. So if you have the problem with several clutches, it's worth a try.

Also, do you have any references for the Pearls not surviving? The only note I can find on them is one from NERD stating they've been produced twice from Woma X Woma and that the genetics were still being studied.

[RandyRemington]

I think I stumbled on the new NERD website a few weeks ago and you are looking at the old site which I suspect is a little dated. NERD’s first pearl predated all other public white ball pythons. Graziani’s site puts the first pearl at 2000, a year after Spider was proven genetic. Before the pearl a white ball python was a mythical creature of legend. There were stories of babies in bottles at exporters and of one passing through the states on the way to Asia but no pictures to convince the doubters. I suspect NERD has produced pearl more than twice now. To put the amount of ball python morph world change of the last 7 years into perspective it’s now gotten to the point that people say things like “not another white snake” (which seems more than a little silly to me) when we used to say things like “do you think there really was or ever will be a leucistic ball python?” But I wax nostalgic; don’t get me started on rec.pet.herps. Funny the feuds and scandals are about the same even if the technology and morphs have increased exponentially.

The new NERD site gives a little more information on pearl here:

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/ner...d=79&Itemid=58

There was a report a few years ago of an adult imported animal that looked to be a pearl which would tend to give some hope but I never heard if it reproduced and was proven to be the same thing or not.

Of course actual breeding results would be best for being sure about anything but if a homozygous spider does exist I wouldn't expect it's offspring to have any problems that the spider offspring of a normal heterozygous spider don't have. The only difference from the offspring standpoint should be 100% rather than 50% spider offspring, if there could be a breeding homozygous spider to start with regardless of what it would be like. It's not like a homozygous spider could give two copies of the spider gene to the same offspring. Any genetics a homozygous spider could pass on a heterozygous one could also pass on, just in different ratios. I could maybe see a mutation where a female might not be able to lay good eggs but if the male could hatch with a mutation so should the offspring he passes a single copy on to.

I've had my share of bad luck hatching eggs over the years and we always try to figure out something to do better so keep at it and better luck next year.

[Gooseman]

I got an idea... just breed two bumblebees together... any "spiders" would have to be homozygous....

[Brimstone111888]

I got an idea... just breed two bumblebees together... any "spiders" would have to be homozygous....

Thats something I was thinking of but only backwards. Get a super pastel and a possible homo spider and all the offspring should be bumblebees.

Also homozygous lethality isn't uncommon or out of the question. Take in humans. Dwarfism is a dominant gene that is homozygous lethal. If 2 dwarfs make a baby there is a 50% chance to make another dwarf, 25% chance for a death due to the gene, and a 25% chance for a normal baby.

[ctrlfreq]

I got an idea... just breed two bumblebees together... any "spiders" would have to be homozygous....

Two bees together would have the same chance of throwing heterozygous spider offspring as breeding two spiders.

[Gooseman]

...how would you get a spider from a bumblebee pairing that was NOT homozygous for spider? because anything het in a bumblebee pairing is another bumblebee.... your other possible results is a super pastel and a "super" spider....???

[muddoc]

Actually, draw the punnett square, and you'll ba amazed to see that you can hatch a normal Ball python by pairing a Bumblebee to a Bumblebee.

[ctrlfreq]

...how would you get a spider from a bumblebee pairing that was NOT homozygous for spider?

Bumblebees are heterozygous for pastel and can be either heterozygous or homozygous for spider. The reason we don't know whether they are heterozygous or homozygous is because both forms are identical visually.

The possible results (each with varying odds) of breeding two bumblebees are normals, pastels, spiders, bumblebees, and killer bees -- unless one or both are homozygous for spider. If that is the case, normals and pastels would not be possible, but whether the offspring are homo or hetero for spider would be unknown without extensive breeding, each time only producing spider offspring.

[RandyRemington]

But we don't know if there has ever been a homozygous spider or what they look like.

You’re pretty safe assuming your bumblebees are only het for spider.

I think the confusion here is coming from the relationship between spider and pastel. There apparently is none. The production of killer bees proves that spider and pastel are two different genes and as early and often as killer bees have been produced it sure doesn't look like the two genes are near each other.

So a bumblebee has the spider mutant gene paired with a normal copy of the spider gene and the pastel mutant gene paired with a normal copy of the pastel gene and it passes or doesn't pass those to its offspring independently. So, just as both parents could give the normal for spider version of that gene they could also both give the normal for pastel version of the separate pastel locus and produce a complete normal.