Hm, dont count on the DNA analyses to clear things up much. The way they are done is to compare an unknown (say the "hobby honduran" to a known (say real hondurensis and atlantic costal). If you got pattern AAA from the unknow and the honurensis gave you pattern BBB while the atlantic gave you AAA, well then its simple. The unknown is atlantic.



But in reality its much more complicated, since genes move all around down there through intergrade zones there is almost certainly a mix of patterns in all populations. So, if you get pattern ABA from your unknown does that mean its 2/3 atlantic and 1/3 hondurensis and thus a mut? or, did you not sample enough wild hodurensis and therefor missed a population that has pattern ABA?



It gets even more complicated if you consider backcrossing. Say the orginal albino was not honduran but bred in to a pure real deal honduran. The hets are 50%, the hets are bred to each other to make more albinos which are also 50%. These f2 albinos are back bred to more hondurans (lets say they are cheaper or you want to make a tangerine albino). Back breed a few generations, more than 4, and now the animals are greater than 90% honduran. The test may not be senative enough to detect that level of purity.



Maybe it will, but dont expect a nice clean answer.



Best,

Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859



Natural Selection Reptiles

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