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Peppermint Chimera

That is really cool! It's like a peppermint with some cinder markings thrown in. I hope you have it in the keeper rack and post many more pics.
 
Nanci said:
Why is it a chimera and not a paradox?
Click to expand...

I loved Doug Mong's explanation on my face book post. I've copied & pasted it here.:)

Here is some info regarding the term "chimera", and how it applies to snakes. Paradox is a generic term for many different types of anomolies. Usually it is an amel which has splotches of black pigment, or an anery with splotches of red pigment. Thus the "paradox" of an unpigmented/pigmented snake. Some of these may be chimeras, meaning they are completely conjoined fraternal twins, so that the body of the snake has cells which originated from two different fertilized eggs. A chimera can have any two different morphs involved, and the cells originating from each egg will produce the correct pigmentation for that particular morph. Chimerism isn't really reproducible, the egg/sperm cells produced by a chimera will have come from either one or the other cell lines, and not a mixture of both. Lava corns also sometimes have a blotchy effect which is called paradox.
 
Chimera

An animal chimera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction. Chimeras are formed from at least four parent cells (two fertilized eggs or early embryos fused together). Each population of cells keeps its own character and the resulting organism is a mixture of tissues.


Regarding mosiac: If the different cells have emerged from the same zygote, the organism is called a mosaic.
 
The reason I asked is because I see black specks- I'm well aware of what a chimera is. What do you think the other morph is? "Just" cinder? Is hypo involved? The differently-colored part doesn't seem dark enough to be cinder, to me.
 
Nanci said:
Why is it a chimera and not a paradox?
Click to expand...

It is probably a mosaic/paradox. Maybe what we call a "revertant" mosaic, where the amel mutation reversed itself in a cell during development (in this hypothetical scenario a new mutation occurs at the amelanistic locus that restores gene function, "reverting" the amel allele to wt, or something close enough). This is not as unlikely as it sounds, especially if the mutation causing amelanism is a point mutation or single nucleotide insertion/deletion. That's why paradox animals don't produce paradox offspring, because the reversion didn't occur in a cell destined to become a gamete.
 
Nanci said:
The reason I asked is because I see black specks- I'm well aware of what a chimera is. What do you think the other morph is? "Just" cinder? Is hypo involved? The differently-colored part doesn't seem dark enough to be cinder, to me.
Click to expand...

If the reversion only partially restores function to an amel allele, you might get a more hypo look.
 
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