>Although, he notes the presence of aborted fetuses to account for the missing 1/4. i know that lethal alleles can become lethal at any point during an organisms lifetime, but if there



I may not know much about the genetics of Ball Pythons, but I consider myself something of a lay-expert on mouse genes. My vacation reading this week has been the "coat colors of mice" by Silvers... a VERY technical book.



As far as Silvers states, homozygous dominant yellow mice lack some specific ingredient to implant in the uterine wall, therefore they never implant, the mouse re-absorbs the fetus (which at this stage is merely a microscopic clump of cells), and never "aborts" the fetus.



As far as lethal genes, there are quite a large number of them within the mouse fancy, and even more varieties produced through irradiation. There is dominant white spotting which is also lethal when homozygous. In that case the animals actually make it to birth, and usually die of anemia in the first three weeks of life... some do live, are half size, black eyed white, and sterile. In my mouse colonies I have dominant yellow, Viable dominant yellow, and recessive yellow, which on first inspection are all phenotypically identical. My record keeping is not perfect, and with a recent move, they got all mixed up. Now I've had to try to use litter size to figure out which ones are lethal dominant yellow, which are viable, and which are recessive. So far no luck.



I have to say I have enjoyed the discussion so far. The genetics of ball pythons will probably always be hypothetical to me, but I look forward to continuing my learning curve.
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~Sasheena

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