>You are making the classic mistake that I was referring to in my original post. The outcome of any one offspring has no bearing on the outcome of any another offspring. Think about the problem like this. Each of the snake eggs was issued 4 cards, 1 king, 2 queens, and a jack. (The 1:2:1 ratio that you get when you do the square for Aa x Aa cross.) Then someone comes along and draws one of these four cards for each snake egg. The odds of getting a king on any of the draws are 1 in 4. For each draw, the odds do not change regardless of any of the past results because each event (draw) is independent of the other. The result for any one or more snakes in the clutch has no effect on any of the other snakes.



We agree 100% up to this point.



>So the odds of getting a hetro snake from picking any of the wild type offspring is still 50/50.



Disagree. Picking heterozygotes from the wild type-looking babies is a whole new card game. The new game is equivalent to issuing three cards, a king and two queens, to each normal-looking baby and then selecting one card. The odds in this game are 1/3 for a king and 2/3 for a queen. If you disagree, please list all possible outcomes and the odds for each, so that the total equals 1 (100%).



Paul Hollander

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