Posted by:
RandyRemington
at Sun May 27 07:47:59 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by RandyRemington ]
Not a guarantee. There are many who report having known het pieds without it and even some with assumed non het pieds with it. However, it does seem to show up very often in het pieds so might be a useful (if not guaranteed) tool if selecting possible het pied females for breeding.
The indicator is thick dark relatively straight black lines at the edge of a wide white belly. These are most likely to be seen in the last 3rd of the snake and you should see the lines pushed out far enough on the side that all three belly scales are white between them. It is variable so combined with the sporadic nature in known hets and the possibility of non hets showing it is far from a perfect tool but I do think it's useful.
Notice that in homozygous pieds the white comes up from the belly and in places wraps around the back. To me the sporadic het pied indicator looks like the beginning of the pied white (although not as bright) coming up from the belly, it just isn’t as extreme and doesn’t make it as far. I have seen a picture of a possible het pied female where the white does reach up to the back much like a low white homozygous pied. Remember that the amount of white in homozygous pieds is variable, so any expression in heterozygous pieds may also be variable.
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RE: markers on het pieds - RandyRemington, Sun May 27 07:47:59 2007 