Wondering if I am understanding this correctly

[luckycharm318]

So I've been looking at Ian's Viv trying to better understand the different morphs and how they are created.

So far, I have interpreted for example, that a Ghost is created by breeding a homozygous Anerythristic A to a homozygous Hypomelanistic. Is this correct?

Because when I put Anery and Hypo into the Corn Calculator, it comes out Normal het Anery, Hypo.

And now, I am confused.:blowhead:

 

[Shiari]

Ghosts are homozygous anery a (two copies of the gene for anerythrism) and homozygous hypomelanism a (two copies of the gene for hypomelanism). Because parents only give *one* gene each to their offspring, BOTH parents must have the genes in order for the gene to be expressed in the case of recessive traits. Recessive genes are 'hidden' unless there are two copies present as otherwise the normal copy is dominant.

That's why it says normal HET (heterozygous meaning 'different') anery and hypo. Those animals will carry one gene for each because the anery parent gives *one* anery gene copy, but the hypo parent gives a normal gene copy at the location where the anery recessive gene resides. And equally the hypo parents gives one hypo gene at the location where that recessive gene is, but the anery parent gives a normal gene. Thus, neither trait can be expressed.

 

[luckycharm318]

Ahh, at the beginning of your post I was quite confused but now I understand, I think.

So each parent would have to have the het of the other to get the intended offspring?

Hypo het Anery x Anery het Hypo = Ghost?

 

[Asbit]

No, Ghost is a two trait snake, so it has to have both of those genes, you will need to breed two snakes that have both genes present, either homo or het.

For ex. Anery het hypo x Hypo het Anery will make


25% Normals
25% Hypos
25% Anerys
25% Ghosts

Does that help?

 

[luckycharm318]

Well that makes sense, yes. But I'm still not quite getting how to get both.

Oh goodness this is confusing. I've never had any intentions to breed, I think I'll just leave it to the experts!

 

[Nanci]

Let's do lavender bloodred. Another two-trait cornsnake.

You need a copy of lavender from each parent, and a copy of bloodred from each parent.

So- if you breed a lavblood to another lavblood, each parent has two lavender genes, and two bloodred genes. Each parent has to pass on one lav gene and one bloodred gene, so the baby gets one of each from each parent, and turns out lavender bloodred.

But if the parent is only het lavender or bloodred, it has one lavender gene and one wild-type (normal, classic) gene, (and needs two lav genes to BE lavender, so it will LOOK normal) and one bloodred gene and one wild-type gene, (and needs two bloodred genes to BE bloodred, so it will LOOK normal).

You have a 50:50 chance of the parent passing on its one lavender or bloodred gene, instead of the normal gene. And you need both parents to pass on a lavender gene each, AND a bloodred gene each, for the baby to be a lavblood.

 

[luckycharm318]

Ah ha, I think I understand... I think. Basically the easiest way to get a two trait snake is to breed two, two trait snakes of the desired type, instead of trying to create them with two single trait snakes.

 

[pridecity]

I'm not expert yet, but I think if you had a hypo and an anery, you could breed them. You would get normals het for hypo and anery. Then, if you breed the siblings together, you would get:

3 / 16 Anery 66% poss het. Hypo
9 / 16 Normal 66% poss het. Anery, Hypo
3 / 16 Hypo 66% poss het. Anery
1 / 16 Ghost ( Anery, Hypo )

This means that if you had 16 eggs hatch, it would most likely be 9 normals, 3 Aneries, 3 Hypos, and 1 ghost.

The easiest way to get a ghost would be to have two ghosts (Anery Hypo x Anery Hypo). There are other ways including the following:

Anery het Hypo x Anery het Hypo. This would give mostly Aneries 66% possible het Hypo and a 25% chance of a Ghost. Or, you could breed Hypo het Anery x Hypo het Anery. This would give you 75% chance for Hypos 66% possible het for Anery and 25% chance of ghost.

Does this make sense?

 

[luckycharm318]

That's a lotta genetic information. :eek1:
But yes I'm getting the jist of this whole genetics thing. Like I said I don't plan to breed, but it's interesting to know what I could get if I were to try it out. Purely curious, I'm pretty sure I have to take a genetics course at some point (seems likely to get a DVM eh?) perhaps I'll be able to make a project involving corns... Oh the possibilities.

 

[Yarmuck]

Ah ha, I think I understand... I think. Basically the easiest way to get a two trait snake is to breed two, two trait snakes of the desired type, instead of trying to create them with two single trait snakes.

And now you can appreciate the time and effort that goes into making new morphs combinations. For instance if I wanted to make an Amel Cinder Bloodred, (since there are none that I know of yet) I would breed an Amel Cinder to an Amel Bloodred (Fire) then all of the babies would Amel het for Cinder and Bloodred. Then I would hold back those babies, (hopefully I had a breeding pair), grow them up for about 3 years, and then breed them together. Even after all of that time, I would STILL only have a 1/16 chance to hatch the desired combination.

Makes you appreciate all those pretty combos even more huh?:cheers:

 

[luckycharm318]

Yes, make me envy all of those who have pretty morph combos that are unattainable to me. Thanks so much.

 

[Nanci]

But Shelby, the good and bad thing about cornsnakes is although a new morph may first be offered for sale at $1200-$2000, the price drops over the next few years until you _can_ afford it! The snakes will still be just as beautiful, but everyone that was frantically working to be the first to produce them will now ALL have them, and people will be breeding New Morph x New Morph and getting 100% New Morphs. I _never_ thought I could afford a lavender bloodred, much less an opal stripe or hypo lavender stripe. Eventually, they dropped into my price range.

 

[ZoologyGirl]

Looks like you're starting to understand it pretty well. A lot of people make the same mistake when first starting to understand the genetics.

The main rule of thumb I say is that for most traits....if you want a certain morph to show up in offspring, then both the parents must have that trait either in homozygous recessive form (i.e. expressing the trait), or heterozygous form. This doesn't work exactly right when talking about traits like ultramel, and the stripe/motley gene which work a little differently.

So if you want a ghost...both parents must have hypo and anery. Hypo and anery can be in homozygous recessive form (i.e. showing ghost), or both can be in heterozygous form (normal het ghost), or one can be homozygous and one heterozygous. And both parents don't have to be the same as long as they both have all the morphs you want, it will just affect the theoretical percentages of the offspring morphs.

 

[paulh]

If you want a certain morph to show up in the offspring, here's what you do.

1. Figure out the gene pair(s) that produce the morph.

2. Make a shopping list of the possible gene pair(s) that could be in the parents.

3. Select the actual parents from the shopping list.

Let's say you want a ghost.
1. Ghost is a combination of hypomelanistic (hypo) and anerythristic (anery). There must be two hypo genes in the gene pair (hypo//hypo) to produce a hypo snake. And there must be two anery genes in the gene pair (anery//anery) to produce an anerythristic snake.

2. Each parent gives one gene from each gene pair to each baby. So each parent must have either one or two hypo mutant genes in the gene pair. Same for anerythristic.

Male hypo gene pair:
normal//hypo
hypo//hypo

Male anerythristic gene pair:
normal//anery
anery//anery

Female hypo gene pair:
normal//hypo
hypo//hypo

Female anerythristic gene pair:
normal//anery
anery//anery

Now you have the shopping list and can select the parents from available stock. Just remember, the more mutant genes in the gene pair(s), the more likely you are to make ghost.

This works for all morphs, including ultramels, which have an ultra mutant gene paired with an amelanistic mutant gene (ultra//amel). Here's the shopping list for producing ultramels.

Parent #1 contributes the ultra mutant gene:
ultra//ultra
ultra//amel
normal//ultra

Parent #2 contributes the amelanistic mutant gene:
amel//amel
ultra//amel
normal//amel

The hardest part is selecting the parent pair from the available stock.