I would have to disagree. An actual Mojave is a high blush, patterned animal while the Super Mojave is a blue-eyed pure white snake...How is a high blush animal anywhere near an intermediate ("blend") between Normal and pure white?
Well, it's also certainly NOT a pied-lookalike (patches of Super-Mojave white and patches of Wildtype normal colour) which would make it "codominant".
A Mojave has reduced black pigmentation (less black than a normal, more than a super Mojave - which incidentally is NOT a "pure white" snake. They have head markings and often faint "ghost" markings on the flanks) and to some extent the yellow is reduced as well. The pattern is altered, yes - maybe that's more influence from the Mojave side.
You say "high blush patterned animal" I say "animal displaying reduced pigmentation as an expression of the ultra-reduced pigmentation of a super mojave tempered by the influence of normal wildtype pigmentation".
I think maybe you should contact Charles Pritzel as he is the author of
Genetics for Herpers which is supposed to be an all-around genetics guide to reptiles. Never read it myself, but it might be worth your while to talk to him about his reasoning and your explanation of why he may not be using terminology correctly.
I haven't read it either, and I didn't
say that Charles used the term incorrectly at any point; however, if he ALWAYS uses "codominant" to describe all traits where there are three separate phenotypes, corresponding to "noncarrier, heterozygous, homozygous" and does not make the distinction between "blended incomplete dominance" and "patched codominance" then he is indeed using the word "codominant" more broadly than it should be.
Bloodred/Diffuse may well be "codominant" and variably so - patches of belly scales showing the correct pattern for a normal (checkered), patches of belly scales showing the correct pattern for a Bloodred/Diffuse (unmarked) ... with the amount and extent of the patches varying by individual. I don't know for sure - I do not own enough Diffuse or het for diffuse animals nor have I bred them to know for sure.
if it was suggested by Chuck that Diffused be labeled as "variable co-dominant," and Ssthisto disagrees because he (she?) is saying that their is no co-dominance in reptiles, how is he (she?) not saying Chuck is wrong? :shrugs:
How is Ssthisto not saying Chuck is wrong?
Because she never said that there was
no codominance in reptiles.
She said that
Most people use the "codominant" term because it's shorter to type (and abbreviates well to codom, unlike "incomdom"
)
I also defined what the difference between Codominance and Incomplete Dominance is. Both produce three phenotypes; they just have a different visual appearance.
Now I will say that in the majority of cases people DO misuse the term and what they MEAN is "incomplete dominant" when they're SAYING "codominant". And, as I tongue-in-cheek pointed out, it may be down to how quickly you can say or write "co-dom" compared to having to say, write or type "incomplete dominant" which does not abbreviate nearly so well. That goes for pythons and corns and leopard geckos alike, and it seems like half or more of the people I talk to about genetics don't understand that Dominant and Homozygous are not synonyms either.
If we're speaking about variable co-dominant, wouldn't that then apply to his statement that their is no co-dominance in reptiles? I think so.
Ok, let's try this thought experiment.
Imagine that we've discovered a new corn snake gene that enhances and increases black pigment, a hypermelanism trait. It isn't dominant to wildtype and it isn't recessive, because it has three distinct phenotypes corresponding to noncarrier, heterozygous and homozygous. That leaves two possibilities - incomplete dominance and codominance.
If Hypermelanistic is
incompletely dominant, a heterozygous animal will have more black than a normal, but less black than a 'superhyper' has. Think "wider borders, darker pigment in a het, but a homozygous is solid BLACK."
If Hypermelanistic is
codominant, a heterozygous animal will have areas where the black is normal and areas where the black is 'superhyper' strong. This could happen in different ways - imagine an animal where a het's belly checkers have expanded to fill the entire belly with black (like a western hognose) but the dorsal pattern is completely normal; a homozygous animal is again solid black.
If the trait is
VARIABLY incompletely dominant, you might have some animals who only very slightly show "extra black" - wider borders, maybe, or the dark melanin lines down the flanks - and you might have some animals where they ALMOST look like a Superhypermelanistic* themselves.
If the trait is
VARIABLY codominant, you might have some animals with a line of black on the belly, surrounded with normal belly checkers (Sound like bloodred? Good!) and some animals where the black pigment is creeping up the sides and leaving only the extreme top of the back looking "normal".
For the record, I think bloodred
may be variably-three-phenotype "not-recessive" ... but I don't know if it's COdominant or INCOMPLETE dominant. I don't have enough of a personal sample size nor enough experience with other people's animals to have formed an educated idea of how it works.
* "Superhypermelanisticexpialidocious, even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious... "
