normals het for something, impossible not to?

[gekko1]

i was thinking that most CB normal phase corns must be het for something. somewhere in its bloodline there must be something. i mean unless its wild caught there must be, am i wrong to assume this?

 

[pdrau]

I just recently had this conversation with one of my herp friends. He told me that it is more likely than not that they are, but of course until they produce viable young there is no way to tell.

The question then arises, if you have two CB normal corns and breed them, how do you tell which one was het for what in the mix of young?

I suppose you could breed the CB normal to a pure morph that isn't het for anything else and see what happens. I'm sure you'd get normals out of that cross that would be het for who knows what. It surely spirals out into the unknown from there even further.

Peter

 

[gekko1]

i'm actually planning on breeding my normal male with a snow or hyposnow to see what he has in him. since if i breed him with any other snake the babies will come out normal anyways unless both are het for the same thing. but with a snow we'll see since amel and anery seem to be the most common.

 

[pdrau]

pardon my newbieness, but why is it only snow or hyposnow that can be used to find out what the normal is possibly het for?

 

[gekko1]

a snow has three traits, normal, amel and anery. amel and anery are the two most common morph so if my normal corn has any of those two traits it should show in the babies. kind of like painting on a white canvas for certain colors.

 

[Iris]

gekko1, that was a cute simile. I think that's what you call it..I was never too good with poetry

 

[Serpwidgets]

The question then arises, if you have two CB normal corns and breed them, how do you tell which one was het for what in the mix of young?

When you're talking about recessives, if you have morphs in the offspring, it is only going to be when BOTH parents are het for the same thing. Question answered: they're both het.

Once cheap gene-testing becomes a reality you should be able to clip off a little bit of a ventral scale and mail it into a lab who could then tell you the animal's genotype for all known mutations and traits.

a snow has three traits, normal, amel and anery.

Close, a snow is two mutant traits: amel and anery. Normal is dependent on what trait you're talking about... a snow is "normal" for motley, hypo, charcoal, bloodred, caramel, lavender, etc.

As far as trying to dig out what a normal is het for, this is a big runaround. It's a lot easier to just buy a known het, or something of that morph.

Get the morph you want to produce. If your normal is not het for that, at least you have produced offspring that are known het for something you wanted to produce, and you're already halfway there. My question is always, "what good does it do to produce corns het for (or expressing) some trait you aren't interested in producing?"

i mean unless its wild caught there must be, am i wrong to assume this?

Wild-caught corns can also carry these mutations... that's where they originated. Maybe that's what you were saying, but yeah it's not as likely as with a CB. I hear a lot of wild corns in parts of Florida are Anerythristic. If that's true, there has to be a huge population of them that are het anery floating around out there, too.

 

[pdrau]

ahh, I see....so the same "limited" genetics knowledge I have from keeping aquarium fish does apply to some degree....just have to make the crossover to snakes and figure out what I want to cultivate.

What would be the expected percentages of offspring morphs with my normal male X my ghost female if the male is not het for anything?

I'm thinking 50 percent normal not het, 25 percent normal het for ghost, and 25 percent ghost. Is my thinking right here?

 

[jim]

a normal and a ghost will produce all normals het for ghost. (hypo and anery a) for something to display a simple recessive trait both parents have to be at least het for that trait. good luck--- jim

 

[pdrau]

thanks Jim, you qualify for the guinea pig award...I was testing angelfish genetics theory applied to snakes...you win...hmmm...NOTHING! haha...ok...well maybe an amel star for genetics knowledge

I do have a better understanding of how it works now....pardon my newbieness

 

[jim]

genetics...

peter,
click the members button at the top of the page and go to serpwidgets' site. tons of good info on corn genetics. (among other things) be prepared to be there awhile. have fun, jim

 

[Serpwidgets]

Based on the guess you had, sounds like you're more used to working with codominant and/or dominant traits. (?)

With corns so far, the standard is recessive mutations. I don't know of any fully dominant mutations in snakes. The only proven codominant I know of is Tiger in retics. Heh, but then I don't follow morphology in other species, so for all I know corns are the weird exception.

Check out my genetics tutorial for a good refresher. Sounds like you've got a decent grasp, and that should bring it all back to you.

 

[pdrau]

My theory applies to second generation bred back to each other as shown on http://serpwidgets.com/cornsnakes/Genetics/Inheritance/inheritance.html . It is the same with angelfish genetics. I just skipped a step.

The 66% het or 2 out of 3 het is what I was talking about when I said 50 percent would be normal het for ghost and 25 percent would be normal, while the remaining 25 percent should be ghost.

Very cool site. I'm having a blast relearning this to apply to corns.

Peter

 

[pdrau]

pewter male!

I just talked to a friend of mine and he's going to let me use his male pewter to breed with my ghost female in the spring. Oh the possibilities!

 

[jim]

lol... what fun huh??? n/p

n/p