Robert,

Well the first thing if you are looking at genetics and traits from a scientific point of you have to be extremely skeptic of everything you hear and people tell you. I believe that Sean made that assumption and rightfully so from Kevin's website that Leucistics come out completely white. How do you know that all marketed Leucistics come out white from the egg. Have you seen any marketed Leucistics hatch out? I would be willing to bet that most of them are not white at hatching. Maybe they are noticebly different then other "normal dragons" but still not completely white. I have seen several Leucistics from the source that are not completely white as described by the person who is selling them here in the U.S. Nost of them have some pastel or brown coloring around the eyes and head that fades as they become adults. I developed this opinion from actually looking at baby Leucistics that were 3-4 weeks old and observing Leucistic hatchling pics that people have sent to me and posted. How can you without seeing Sean's animals come to a conclusion based on what he is telling you they look like. The differene is a fine shade. Also dragons especially white ones can show vastly different coloration in diffferent settings. Many Snows can look very white like Brandon's Snow Dragons who have produced some super light offspring out of the egg. Some of his snow are whiter than many Leucistics. This could be husbandry, environmental, genetics or several other things.



Now that I reread this info, it seems that Seans breeding did prove something... (the snow leucistic hets) If the leucistic color is in fact a recessive gene... them it would have became the dominant "color" of the dragon.



I am not sure how you came to this conclusion. If you have to hets for Leucistic assuming that Leucistic is a reccesssive trait like Kevin says then if you breed two of those together then you would get 25% Homozygous recessive for both clear nails and Leucism, which would be considered a Leucistic. The rest would be 66% hets.



I think that you are assuming that there is a Codominant gene that Snows carry that is one of the possible alleles that fits into the same loci and that actually "competes" for the same spot as a Leucistic gene. First of all you have to have proven genetic traits to assert that conclusion. The Snow Dragons have not been proven to be any type of genetic trait. It would be very hard to prove unless you obtained some wild type beardies actually from the wild and then also obtained some Snows from the wild or that you know are not carrying any other hypo genes and then bred them for many generations to be certain what is going on with a possible "Snow gene." The reptiles that you are getting your background from are still being collected from the wild and therefore have proven wild types that they can use as a reference for breeding. But for BDs you cannot do the same. If Snows did carry a gene that was some form of Hypopmelanism then how would you prove it with a shallow mixed up gene pool. There is no way to tell that an animal is carrying a "Snow Codominant Gene" or not. It is for this reason that it is much easier to breed for straight recessive genes in BDs. They can be proven in a two or three generations where as codominant genes take many more generations and very distinct differences between Codominant traits. Leucistic and Snows do not have very distinct phenotypic differences. Look up Codominant genes in Chickens ,Which are "gene wise" closely related to Reptiles, and you will see that the Heterozygous Codominants have completely different phenotypic appearances than either Homozygous siblings in almost every study.



Clear nails can appear on both Hypomelanistic dragons and ones that are not. There are now several examples that I can site. Whether or not these clear nails from Hypomelanistic animals are the same genetic trait that shows up in Non Hypo animals remains to be seen. I do know that when I breed my Hypopastels to a Het Hypopastel that I get about 55-60% with clear nails and the rest with light brown to dark nails. When I do a Het to Het breeding I get about 33% with Clear nails.



Good talking to you and got to go to work to check out some fecals.

-Randy

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www.AlphaDragonZ.com





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Edited on January 29, 2005 at 10:02:04 by phwyvern.

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