This was posted on other sites so I am just copy and pasting but I think you will get the just.



Hope this helps if not there are plenty more posts I can direct you too. This is a repost of information that I posted a few months ago. Also if you want to understand the possible 50% hets and possible 66% hets then I can explain it but it is better if you visit NERD www.newenglandreptile.com/genetics_simple_recessive.html and yes you are right it is simple probability and high school genetics.



I would like to preface this by saying that most of what I believe is my opinion that I have developed from research, breeding, and conversations with other breeders. First I would like to say that for many people coming from a snake background like cornsnakes or ball pythons it is very difficult to move into BDs because we do not have the influx of wild caught animals coming in to the American Pet Trade. This is a large barrier in proving and selecting for traits.



Currently I work with all three of the proven genetic morphs (Translucents, Hypopastels(Colored and marketed Leucitics), Smoothies)



Translucents =(recessive) a form of albinism were there is a a reduction or absence of the white pigment in the base layer of their skin. They have black eyes and have translucent look to all or portions of their bodies.

Here is what Paul Morlock had to say about this

The translucent dragons are a form of albinism. They are missing white or have a reduction in white. I did some reasearch and to my knowledge there are no other cases of animals missing white. The irridiphores are responsible for making this color so technically these animals are Hypoirristic. The white is the base skin color so when you remove it the skin is transparent. The skin color in dragons is layered,white being the base,red yellow or orange next and then black on top of that. It seems that as the animals grow they tend to lose the translucence because the red,yellow,and oranges cover most of the body. The animals you have seen posted previously were produced by Sandfire Dragon Ranch. The original animals were purchased from overseas 2 years ago. The group was split in half, half bred to our Sandfire line and half to our pastel line. The resulting hets were then bred to produce the animals you've been seeing. As of now we still have not bred trans to trans. The black eyes do not seem to be directly related to the translucent mutation,they just happend to pop up at the same time. The hypo translucents I have posted are a completely different bloodline produced by myself 2 years ago. These animals are interesting because they are missing 2 out of the 3 skin colors, one step away from true albino.

"almost albino"

Hypopastel = This is a hypomelanistic(co-dominant or recessive) animal with clear nails (recessive). These animals show blue-grey were other dragons are showing dark pigment. I personally believe that clear nails is a separate trait because I have seen animals that were not hypomelanistic but had clear nails. I think the reason why they show up together 90% of the time is because the genes are either close to each other or on the same locus therefore segregating together almost 100% of the time or maybe the clear nailed animals that are not hypomelanistic are a whole other gene in itself. I also have another theory but I am leaning towards this one.



Smoothies = basically have not even hit the market yet but they will this year. This is reported to be a recessive trait. This is the reduction of the large scalation on the back. They also have a reduced number of nuchal and lateral spikes. This makes for a kind of muttled color or appearance on the back of any dragon possesing this recessive trait.



Hypopmelanistic(Snow) = A line bred dragon that was originally started with a clear nailed animal that was very light. Kevin Dunne did not breed for the clear nail trait so most now have dark nails. These dragons start out like a normal dragon and most get lighter as they get older. The biggest difference in these guys and Hypopastels is that you can pick out hypopastels from birth in comparison to their het siblings. Also Snow dragons usually can get very dark and look almost like a normal dragon hypopastels cannot or to a much lesser degree show that dark pigment. I think that Snow dragons are lightly pigmented line bred animals. Whether or not they is any sort of gene(s) that is in play here that is a different story.



Marketed Leucistics = They are Hypopastels!! Many drop their color early on in life. Hypopastels have been bred to Leucistics and the result were a bunch of hatchling hypomelanistic dragons with clear nails = Hypopastels. Many of the dragons showed more reds and oranges than there Leucistic parent. It is very hard to remove color from a bloodline once you have it in there. With hypomelanistic(hypopastel with clear nails). I personally think that the biggest difference between marketed Leucisticsand Hypopastels is that the hypopastels we have here in the States have had a lot of color bred into them. The founding Leucistics came from England where the dragons are far less colorful and the Leucistics were probably just came from dragons with very little color therefore they don't carry that with them.



Pastels= Bob Mailloux coined this term for animals with clear nails many of which had pastel colors(Hypopastels) on them too. Well once he coined this term everybody thought they had a Pastel, so they called there dragons Pastels when they were merely just light colored dragons. So unless you are buying Pastels from SDR then most likely they will not have clear nails and do not carry any sort of genetic trait that anybody has proved yet.



There is plenty more but I don't want to go on all night.



Well that is my take and it is a revolving hypotheses. Any other opinions will not be considered.....lol Just Kidding I would love to hear others ideas and hypotheses.



-Randy
-----
www.AlphaDragonZ.com





____

[ Show Entire Thread ]