Ultramel

[Serpwidgets]

These were posted early on in the Ultra Mystery thread, and there have been quite a few more since.

I personally ignore the results given by Shivers because he has never shown any indication that he notices the difference between ultras and ultramels.

Ignoring Shivers results (which still are not inconsistent with ultramel and thus none of which could be suggested as disproof either) there are still 17 crosses in that sheet.

If each snake that was amel or het amel had a 50/50 chance of being het for a non-allelic ultra, and each non-amel or non-het also had a 50/50 chance of being not het for a non-allelic ultra, the odds of the above results occuring would be on the order of 1 in 131,000. That was when I stopped counting.

Add to that pile of numbers our Ultramel male. He was produced from Ultra X Butter Motley. His offspring when crossed to a Charcoal het Amel were normals, ultramels, and amels, in the expected ratio of course.

I don't believe we've included any of Mike Panichi's results in there. His results of crossing golddust or ultra caramel X golddust or ultra caramel have all produced non-normal offspring.

If there is insufficient proof to treat them as alleles, then what alternative can you suggest that is consistent with all of the above? (Since Ultramel IS consistent with all of them, anything better will also have to be consistent, too.)

How will this alternative's predictions vary from the results given by treating them as alleles?

How likely will the result be to vary from those given by ultramel?

How will the amount of variation between the two alternatives compare to the amount of standard variation in clutches from just plain "luck?" That is, even if ultramel were replaced by a "better" model, how many crosses would be required before anyone could even quantify that one alternative is a "better" answer than the other?

 

[paulh]

Following your lead, throwing out Shivers' contribution as unreliable.

Throwing out all crosses that are not ultra or ultramel x ultramel or amelanistic.

Throwing out all crosses where eggs have not hatched.

Assuming category "ultra" might include both ultra and ultramel.

That leaves three crosses worth considering. If any baby from those three was not amelanistic, ultra, or ultramel, it would disprove the hypothesis that ultra and amelanistic are alleles. All babies were amelanistic, ultra, or ultramel. Hypothesis was not disproved (yet).

As the number of babies in these clutches was not included in the chart, no statistical tests could be run.

Conclusion: There is anecdotal evidence that ultra and amelanistic are alleles, but more testing is needed.

 

[Serpwidgets]

I don't think you're going to get very far by waiting around for more reports to come in. Nobody continues to confirm that the sun rose this morning or that charcoal really does act like a simple-recessive. If you want additional numbers, you would need to get them from Rich Z, Don S, Mike Panichi, Stephen Roylance, and Sean Niland to start with. They have done plenty of crosses which have not been reported in the public record. (Nobody reports their results anymore because they are convinced by what they've seen hatching in their own collections.)

The other crosses in that list serve a purpose. They eliminate alternative explanations.

I have yet to come up with an alternative explanation. I asked back in August of last year for alternatives, and nobody has offered even a single one. If they're not alleles, what other explanation should we be considering as a possibility?

If you are not considering crosses from a normal het amel, then what explanation do you offer for the results from our latest clutch? (Ultramel X Charcoal het Amel -> 6 normals, 4 amels, 3 ultramels.) Is your explanation plausible AND is it consistent with the previous listing?

There are three phenotypes associated with the ultra lines: normal, ultra, and what are being called "ultramel." Without invoking dominant or codominant, there's no other plausible explanation for these three.

Rich Z reported in Feb 2004 that he had done a number of crosses of ultra (from Falcon's lines) to sunkissed and produced nothing but normals. (If you want those numbers, ask Rich for them. I trust that he has experienced enough "bad luck" situations that when he says he got all normals he doesn't mean that he hatched one clutch of 5 and that makes it final.) This eliminates "codominant to its wild type allele" or "dominant to its wild type allele" from the list of considerations.

The only thing that comes close is trying to say that ultra is at a separate locus and for some reason when a snake is homozygous ultra at the ultra locus and het for amel at the albino locus, that this is when we get that third phenotype.

But even in that situation, it requires all of the various snakes that produced ultramels (including at least several lavenders, opals, bloodreds, and our charcoal) to have been coincidentally, and for no good reason, het for ultra. Such an explanation also requires Sean Niland's 15 year old ghost het amel (which is older than the ultra lines) to be het for ultra.

What alternative should we be considering?

 

[Rich Z]

I don't think you're going to get very far by waiting around for more reports to come in. Nobody continues to confirm that the sun rose this morning or that charcoal really does act like a simple-recessive. If you want additional numbers, you would need to get them from Rich Z, Don S, Mike Panichi, Stephen Roylance, and Sean Niland to start with. They have done plenty of crosses which have not been reported in the public record. (Nobody reports their results anymore because they are convinced by what they've seen hatching in their own collections.)

Rich Z reported in Feb 2004 that he had done a number of crosses of ultra (from Falcon's lines) to sunkissed and produced nothing but normals. (If you want those numbers, ask Rich for them. I trust that he has experienced enough "bad luck" situations that when he says he got all normals he doesn't mean that he hatched one clutch of 5 and that makes it final.) This eliminates "codominant to its wild type allele" or "dominant to its wild type allele" from the list of considerations.

The reason I haven't reported any more data is because there hasn't been any to report. And won't be until the babies begin hatching out this season. Two points need to be addressed here in consideration of accepting this current hypothesis:

(1) It is not until very recently that many people really knew what to expect from breeding Ultra Hypos and Ultramels to anything at all, based on the current hypothesis, so I do believe that this year will be the "make or break" time for abundant evidence to be observed. If I had known last year what I "know" now, I would have done a completely different set of test breedings. I am certain many other people are in the same boat.

and

(2) NEVER underestimate the power of bad luck in trying to prove a hypothesis. The smaller the number of samples, the greater the influence bad luck can have on the results. Ignore Murphy's Law at your own risk.

I don't believe there is any real penalty for waiting before making a proclamation that a hypothesis is a stone cold hard fact. And even then, I do believe that all facts need to be prefaced with the disclaimer: "Based on all evidence observed up to this date."

IMHO.

 

[breedingcolors]

:-offtopic Who is Kat?

 

[paulh]

I will be delighted if ultra and amelanistic are alleles. But I agree 100% with Rich Z.

 

[Serpwidgets]

I don't believe there is any real penalty for waiting before making a proclamation that a hypothesis is a stone cold hard fact. And even then, I do believe that all facts need to be prefaced with the disclaimer: "Based on all evidence observed up to this date."

As far as I'm concerned, that's true of everything that is not integer math.

I want to reiterate that my assertion is, "the predictions given by ultramel will be 'sufficiently accurate' to warrant using it until something better comes along to replace it." Especially in the absence of even one suggested alternative.

We won't have stone cold hard fact for any of our genetics without sequencing. It's possible that anery is the result of two recessive linked traits. If this were the case, you could have as few as a couple percent less anerys coming from "het anery X het anery" crosses. Given the normally large amount of variation in clutch results, we'd never notice unless we compiled results from thousands upon thousands of clutches. This could be true of any of our "simple morphs" that we work with.

But even if we sequenced them and found out one was like that, it would still be just as good to use the same old Punnett square and predict that 25% of the offspring will be anerys, because the differences cause by the "wrong theory" are well below the noise level caused by plain old-fashined luck.

I think the clutch above is a good example of the differences of the two alternatives presented so far. One predicts all normals het ultra, which clearly did not happen. Ultramel predicted exactly what happened.

Oh, and I forgot to add to the list of snakes that would have to be at least het for ultra, if the ultra allele is not at the amel locus:
A butter motley owned by Chad Fuchs.

Mike Falcon's Amel het Caramel, which was CB from CB parents before the original ultra was discovered.

 

[Rich Z]

As far as I'm concerned, that's true of everything that is not integer math.

Heck, when I was in college, I had a math professor who walked up the the chalk board, and using theorems we all knew and loved, having had them drummed into our head incessantly, proved positively that one (1) equals two (2). Wish I had copied it down......

 

[Serpwidgets]

LOL I've seen the same thing. It uses a very sneaky way to divide by zero.

 

[Rich Z]

So what does that mean? Why either one really does equal two, or one or more theorems are incorrect.

Or, more likely, we are the problem. Trying to dissect and segregate the universe into our little cubbyholes of understanding that our brains are capable of understanding. Like looking at a three dimensional world with only one eye, we can't see the entire depth that is present.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I think some of the trouble with the chart is that many of the reported “Ultras” were in fact Ultramels. This chart was made up prior to the Ultramel Theory. Remember, that Mike Shivers called the Ultramel phenotype “Ultra”. He lumped the Ultras and Hypos from his clutches in to one group of “Hypos”. The Ultra Hypo got its name from the Ultramel phenotype, because it was mistaken for an “Ultra” Hypo. Almost Amel, but not quite. The actual Ultra phenotype looks very much like a hypo and there is nothing “ultra” about it except that it is an allele with amel.

Kats Ultra Motley is actually an Ultramel Motley and the “Ultra” offspring from the breeding to the Lav het amel were actually Ultramels. I know, because I have one.

Rich Z’s Ultra Caramel is actually an Ultramel Caramel or “Goldust”. He produced Ultramels and Amels in all of the combos with Amel.

Don S’s Ultra Motley is actually an Ultramel Motley and when bred to an Amel produced Amels and Ultramels in the same clutches. I believe that Don S breed Ultramel Motley X Ultramel Motley, but never reported the results.

Jason actually bred Ultras X Opals and produced 100% Ultramels. I have some of these as well.

There is some very convincing evidence from this chart if the phenotypes are correctly identified. Every time an Ultramel was bred to an Amel , Ultramels and Amels were produced in the clutch. Every time an Ultra was bred to an Amel, 100% Ultramels were produced.

The Amels that were bred to the Ultramels or Ultras were not from an Ultra line and almost have no possibility of being het or homo for Ultra. The Amels were basically unrelated to the Ultras and/or Ultramels, but the genes still matched up to produce Ultramels. There is actually a lot of evidence from last years breedings that proves the Ultramel Theory to me.

 

[Hurley]

Yep, that chart was written with the info given by the people making the crosses. Obviously identification at the time was a bit muddled, but I agree, there is convincing evidence in that thread if you insert the corrected genotypes into the equations.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Hmm, no, the theorems are not incorrect. They are being misapplied in a way that people are unlikely to spot it. For one example:
Since: -1 * -1 = 1
then: sqr(-1 * -1) = 1
Therefore: sqr(-1) * sqr(-1) = 1

No such theorem exists, it just looks like other commutative operations so it gets missed in all the shuffling around of numbers.

 

[hediki]

so if you breed a ultra x opal u get ultramel het lav? and if so if u you breed ultramel het lav x ultramel het lav would you get ultra opal or just more ultramel het laves a few lavs and a few ultramels

 

[Serpwidgets]

There would be no such thing as an ultra opal. Ultra is homozygous ultra, Opal is amelanistic. Those two things are mutually exclusive.

Amel X ultra = ultramel.

Ultramel X ultramel = 25% ultra, 50% ultramel, 25% amel.

The lavender part of this equation is independent of what is happening at the albino locus. The above applies regardless of the genotypes at any other loci, including lavender, caramel, anery, hypo, motley, etc.

 

[hediki]

so you cant have a quad homo

 

[ecreipeoj]

There are some more numbers from last year that I know of. I saw one clutch of “T+ Albino” X “T+ Albino” at a show last year. They were actually Ultramel X Ultramel. The breeder told me that the clutch was about half Amels and have “T+ Albinos”. There were actually more “T+Albinos”, but when I looked at them many of them were a Hypo, and the others were Ultramels. The Hypos were actually Ultras. So from this breeding, Amels, Ultras and Ultramels were produced in the same clutch.

 

[ecreipeoj]

so if you breed a ultra x opal u get ultramel het lav? and if so if u you breed ultramel het lav x ultramel het lav would you get ultra opal or just more ultramel het laves a few lavs and a few ultramels

Not exactly, Serp already answered your question.

This will be one of the fun things about Ultramels and Ultras. The best thing to breed them to is not another Ultramel, but an Amel of some type, which are fairly common.

I plan on breeding my Ultramel het Lav Motley X Opals. Half of the clutch will be Lavenders. Half of these will be Opals and the other half Ultramel Lavs. I believe, Ultramel Lavs will be very interesting. Now if I only had an Opal Motley the fun would begin!

If they existed, the best thing to breed to an Opal to would be an Ultra Lavender. You would get 100% Ultramel Lavenders. This will be a very fun gene to work with, because it will be very possible to breed two different looking parents together and have all of the offspring look nothing like either of the parents. Usually, the only time this happens, you are looking at a bunch of Classics (Normals).

Paul must think I am crazy talking like this, but in time, he will come around.

Here is my Ultramel Het Lav. I am very jealous of Hurley’s Ultramel “Okeetee” or would it be an Okeetee Ultramel.

 

[ecreipeoj]

so you cant have a quad homo

It is very possible to have a quad homo if the genes are all different and not located at the same locus.

It is impossible to have a double homo Ultra and Amel. The only possibility is a Het Ultra/Amel or Ultramel. I know they look like a homo mutant, but that is only because there is no normal gene in the mix.

You will see Ultramel Lavender Motleys in the not so distant future, but they will be Homo Lavender, Motley and het Ultra/Amel. There are four genes in the mix, but it is a double homo and a Het Ultra/amel. It sure seems as if they should be called a double het Ultra/amel, but not by definition.

 

[Serpwidgets]

so you cant have a quad homo

Correct.

What people tend to forget is that an animal is NOT genetically "mom's genes mixed with dad's genes." Not exactly anyway... for every gene inherited from mom, there was also a gene that was NOT inherited from mom. Same for dad. An animal is "only half of mom's genes, mixed with only half of dad's genes."

If mom has one ultra gene and one amel gene, then junior inherits ONE of these from mom, and it is either the ultra gene OR the amel gene. The same is true of dad. Junior then has two genes at his own albino locus: the one he got from mom, and the one he got from dad.

Mom and dad are both ultramels, genotype a^aa^u. As always, you can use FOIL to determine the four outcomes at this locus.

There are exceptions to these rules where one can inherit an entire extra chromosome. These cases are generally called "polyploidy." The case that causes Down's Syndrome in humans is about 1 in 1,000 live births. The case where a cat has an extra X chromosome is something like 1 in 10,000. I think when having the extra chromosome is not fatal, its likelihood is probably going to be something in this ballpark. So it can happen, but it is the exception and not the rule.

FWIW, I would think that having two functioning ultra genes and two non-functioning amel genes, a polyploidal "aauu" genotype would look like a regular ultra.