The only way to tell is to mate a salmon to an orangetail and then mate their babies to normals. If orangetail and salmon are the same gene or alleles, then statistically 1/4 of the salmon x orangetail babies would have a pair of mutant genes. And 1/4 would be salmon, 1/4 would be orangetail, and 1/4 would be normal. When mated to a normal, those snakes with a pair of mutant genes would not produce any normal babies.

On the other hand, if orangetail and salmon are the result of independent dominant mutant genes, then mating salmon x orangetails to normals should produce some normal babies if at least 20 babies are produced.

So the only way to tell is to make a couple of dozen salmon x orangetails, mate them to normals, and weed out the failures. A failure is defined as a snake that produces any normal babies. If all the salmon x orangetails fail the breeding test, you have pretty good evidence that you can't make supers by mating salmon and orangetail.

Paul Hollander

[ Hide Replies ]

• DO CROSSING A RICH IHLE SALMON AND AN ORANGETAIL HYPO STILL PRODUCE SUPERS? - reptimals, Thu Dec 8 16:24:50 2005
• RE: DO CROSSING A RICH IHLE SALMON AND AN ORANGETAIL HYPO STILL PRODUCE SUPERS? - ReBall1, Thu Dec 8 16:27:49 2005
• I believe so.... - michaelburton, Thu Dec 8 19:55:03 2005
• Yes it will.... - cnb2, Thu Dec 8 20:26:29 2005
• Nobody knows, as far as I know. (more) - Paul Hollander, Fri Dec 9 17:36:25 2005
• I think so because......... - Daniel Klopson, Fri Dec 9 20:27:03 2005