I think we are saying the same thing but I would word it a little different. The reason that the cross line leucistics can't produce normals or leucistics when bred to a normal is because they only have two copies of the gene at the locus for this complex. Just because there are several different known mutations of that gene (lesser/butter, mojave, phantom, Vin Russo, mocha, hidden, special) any one snake can only have two. If it's a leucistic or a platy or a crystal it already has two mutant copies and no room for a normal copy. And because they are all mutations of the same gene and only one copy of each gene is passed to each offspring it can't pass two of the mutations along to make a leucistic when bred to normal. It's just like a het albino can't pass on both its albino and its normal for albino gene to the same offspring, it must pass one or the other. Except with this complex there are more versions than just one mutation and normal, for some reason there are many different mutant versions. They are distinctly different mutations of the same gene – alleles. A new concept that is becoming more important as it looks like there may also be a yellow belly complex and a black eyed leucistic complex and who knows what else (maybe some of the albino types will turn out to be alleles).

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