Posted by:
scaledverts
at Tue Oct 9 00:58:25 2012 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by scaledverts ]
But here's the problem with some of what you just typed. Stripe is likely NOT a single gene. Polygenic is perhaps closer to what might be going on here but the gradient between stripe and tiger isn't that clear. It is a reproducible trait that is not simple recessive because you create it by basically hybridizing ruf. and kenyan sand boas (depending on which phylogeny you subscribe to). The reason it is "sort of" codom is that typically in breeding a stripe to a normal you will end up with ~50% stripes. However, the farther you get away from the original pure ruf. to kenyan breeding (ie lower percentage of ruf.) the less predictable the offspring become. So the morph behaves like a codom gene but there is more at work here than a single gene. In theory, epistasis could be at work here, but without sequencing and targeted upregulation/downregulation networks we really will never know.
The real question in my mind here is: Are rufescens kenyan sand boas and kenyan sand boas actually separate species or are rufescens sand boas simply a locality specific morph of kenyan sand boas (I think most are gravitating toward the second option). The answer to this question either a) makes this whole discussion a moot point because they are hybrids and the pattern differences are the result this hybridization or b) makes the situation much more complicated to explain.
While I agree that 66% het can lead to some confusion, I'm not sure that there is a better way of stating it. Do you know of a better way? It likely started out as something like normal 66% chance of being heterozygous, and got shorted over time.
I think a big reason people misuse genetic terms is because they do not understand them. Unfortunately, that has become part of the marketing of the reptile world. Now that it has started down this path I'm not sure there is much that can be done about it.
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Kyle R. Mara
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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