My Hybrid is a Golddust.

[El Jefe]

The other question that was brought up as an extension of that idea is whether gray rats are "just" black rats homo for the ultra gene. :shrugs: I don't pay enough attention to all the non-corn species so that could be a crackpot idea for all I know. :santa:

Interesting question. You never know.

Need to take trip to GA....wait...can't collect native species! :bang:

 

[Vinman]

Interesting question. You never know.

Need to take trip to GA....wait...can't collect native species! :bang:

watch out it is agenst the law to collect in Ga. and they strongly enforce their wildlife laws.

 

[Vinman]

The other question that was brought up as an extension of that idea is whether gray rats are "just" black rats homo for the ultra gene. :shrugs: I don't pay enough attention to all the non-corn species so that could be a crackpot idea for all I know. :santa:

this dont pan out . what about gulf hammock rat that are a gray /yellow naturaly intergrade. Also i had gray / black rat crosses they look like what they are. Something inbetween the two. this is why I porposse the white oak phase theroy.

 

[Menhir]

Then isn't this true of all the genes they have in common, which also originated in a "different-species" ancestor? :shrugs:

Not, it's not a must. After twenty generations, theoretically the snake could consist of only corn genes. But WE chose the ones that have the non-corn gene again. So, we artificially make this special allel stay in that line.

I don't know that you can say that a gene belongs to the gray rat or the corn. It's a gene, a simple base pair mutation or deletion most likely. Mutations happen spontaneously and ultra could just as easily spontaneously show up in a corn as easily as amel did or lavender or charcoal.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if this is that absolutely true. Two "morphs" as we recognice them can be different at base-view but being compatible and not distingushable at locus or chromosome view - which is the view we as a breeder have on these animals. So I don't think that your example of albinism in many species fits vey well.
If we come to the point, that every mutation can happen in every dna-sequence in every species - why not breeding leuzistic texas ratsnakes into corns and after 5 generations we have leuzistic corns? Or what about the white-side gene? Hey, that bitflip could also happen in corns...
Sorry Hurley, but that doesn't make sense to me. Although we can't guarantee the pureness of an animal, we can at least ensure that the allels we force to be in our lines are what I call "corn-genes" - no matter if it is just a single bitflip.

 

[Serpwidgets]

this dont pan out . what about gulf hammock rat that are a gray /yellow naturaly intergrade. Also i had gray / black rat crosses they look like what they are. Something inbetween the two. this is why I porposse the white oak phase theroy.

Ah, so if they do look like intergrades then it would be a good bet that there's more difference to them than just the one gene. So that rules out the "they're just ultra black rats" idea.

But with the intergrades, since ultra is recessive, any of the intergrades (with rat/rat or corn/rat) would have to go two generations (with both F1s carrying the ultra mutant) in order for the ultra thing to show back up in the typical on/off fashion. The exception would be, as you mentioned, if the corn was carrying the amel gene, but this is supposedly pretty rare in the wild (1% or so?) so the same would apply to wild corns. (This is why it would be much easier to just use an amel corn directly so that side of the cross is fully known. )

IMO the best tests would be "pure" gray rat X amel corn, and "pure" white oaks gray rat X corn. If all of the above produce ultramels, or only the white oaks crosses produce ultramels, then we'd have a pretty solid grasp on things.

I'd be curious to see the amel black rat X gray rat crosses too, I believe one of the amel genes in black rats is an allele to the one in corns so that would be the same test, as long as it was known which black rat amel was being used.

 

[Vinman]

I would do the crosses but over the last few years my finances are very low. I'm just holding my head above water.I agree that it would be nice to see the results of breeding a amel corn to a normal gray rat and a white oak phaseas seperate projects and see what the brother sister crosses in each project produce. the black rat /gray rat crossed that I mentioned early was a albino black rat crossed to a normal gray rat when I went to pick up my animal the hets all looked normal from this cross. There were no amels. I hope that this sheads some light on the project. Also the locus that ultra links with amel in corns might be diffrent than what links amel corns to albino black rats. So it may not link with the albino gene in black rats .

 

[El Jefe]

watch out it is agenst the law to collect in Ga. and they strongly enforce their wildlife laws.

Thanks for the info but I already know...that's why I said:

...wait...can't collect native species! :bang:

:-offtopic

In the past I've spoken with GA fish and game and they told me they are trying to allow morphs in some sort of capacity...that was about 8 months ago....I guess we'll see if anything comes of it.

 

[Hurley]

I always find it odd, when a hybrid that is 50% hybrid blood is compared to a hybrid that is only 10% or less hybrid. One is definitely a hybrid, when the other is definitely not. Nobody could pick out a hybrid that was only 25% hybrid, so how in the world would somebody pick one out that has less hybrid blood in them? Carol's next generation would take it down to 12% and then the next to 6%.

Yeah, 6% if you assume that the corn is 100% different from the gray rat. Now take into account the 95% or better percent of the genes that they have in common and your 6% of 5 or less percent is becoming downright tiny.

 

[carol]

Surely someone has test bred White Oaks Phase to see if it is recessive, I would assume anyway. :shrugs:

 

[Vinman]

I forgot what you get when you breed whiteoak to normal grays. Also what I'm getting at is the white oak may not produce any ultramels with the albino found in black rats as it does with amels found in corns they are not the same gene

 

[Rich Z]

True, but the albino gene would need to be present in the corn in order to make hybrids that look non-normal. So if a wild gray rat was homo ultra and bred to a normal wild corn, the offspring would be hybrids het for ultra so they'd look "normal" (well, you know what I mean.) :grin01:

On the other hand, if you took one of these known wild hybrids and crossed it to an amel corn and got some "ultramels" this is still a pretty good indicator of the ultra gene originating in gray rats, too.

It is definitely a possibility (given that we really know nothing right now) that it's not the entire species but just a significant portion of it. The other question that was brought up as an extension of that idea is whether gray rats are "just" black rats homo for the ultra gene. :shrugs: I don't pay enough attention to all the non-corn species so that could be a crackpot idea for all I know. :santa:

I would think that if gray rat snakes were really black rat snakes homo for ultra, then at the intersection of their ranges throughout Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc (pretty much most of the states bordering the Mississippi river as well), then there would be two concurrent populations evident throughout those areas. Gray rats and black rats living together in the same identical habitats, with color being the only visible distinction between them.

Does such a circumstance exist?

 

[Hurley]

Another potential problem with the theory...aren't black rat, yellow rat, and grey rat hatchlings all identical at birth? Or am I just smoking crack? Not my species, but I thought I had heard that. What do the white oaks phased ones look like at birth?

 

[Vinman]

good question. gotta find a breeder that breeds them and ask them for a pic

 

[Hurley]

Dwight Good is into various rat snakes. Terri, do you have his email address?

 

[Serpwidgets]

I would think that if gray rat snakes were really black rat snakes homo for ultra, then at the intersection of their ranges throughout Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc (pretty much most of the states bordering the Mississippi river as well), then there would be two concurrent populations evident throughout those areas. Gray rats and black rats living together in the same identical habitats, with color being the only visible distinction between them.

Does such a circumstance exist?

Vinny said they look like intergrades between the two types. So, yeah, that whole idea was shot out of the water.

 

[Vinman]

i found this photo on king snake of Dwight Good albino gray rat and a het

 

[Hurley]

I just know that I found a hatchling rat snake last year on the floor at the expo in Daytona and after going around to all the tables in the adjoining 3 aisles or so, no one could tell me if it was black/grey/yellow or otherwise, and kept saying that you can't tell until they age and start to take on their adult coloration. It looked just like the normal in the picture above.

 

[Vinman]

I just know that I found a hatchling rat snake last year on the floor at the expo in Daytona and after going around to all the tables in the adjoining 3 aisles or so, no one could tell me if it was black/grey/yellow or otherwise, and kept saying that you can't tell until they age and start to take on their adult coloration. It looked just like the normal in the picture above.

100% RIGHT

 

[Hurley]

Forgot to put in there that I was trying to find its owner and the morph ID was incidental, but never did locate anyone missing a "some type of" rat snake. I ended up sending it home with a guy who had other rat snakes to grow it up and see what it turned into.

 

[Joejr14]

Grey rats are certainly not 'ultra' black rats. Grey rats are quite abundant in north florida (seen numerous), but black rats are not found in the state. That kills that theory.

As for pictures...

Hatchling grey rat:

Everglades rat:

Black Rat:

Yellow Rat: