>I've bred a Honduran "Tiger" Male to several normal females. Now if roughly 50% of the offspring carry the same visual , missing saddles semi reverse stripe look, as the father can we assume that the trait is co-dominant or not?



Even if we assume that tiger is caused by a mutant gene, you can tell practically nothing about the genetics from this sort of cross alone.



Tiger might be a recessive mutant gene, and you simply had the good fortune to mate it with heterozygous females. Not likely, but not impossible. Testing this would require mating tiger x tiger and normal x normal from the present crop of babies.



If tiger is a dominant mutant gene, then you are crossing normal females with a heterozygous tiger, which has a tiger mutant gene paired with a normal gene. This would result in around 50% baby tigers, which would have a tiger gene paired with a normal gene like their father.



If tiger is a codominant mutant gene, then you are crossing normal females with a heterozygous tiger, which has a tiger mutant gene paired with a normal gene. This would result in around 50% baby tigers, which would have a tiger gene paired with a normal gene like the father.



The only way to determine whether tiger is a dominant mutant gene or a codominant mutant gene is to produce homozygous tiger boas, with a pair of tiger mutant genes, and see how easy it is to distinguish homozygous tiger boas from heterozygous tiger boas.



Paul Hollander

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