Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If you breed a super salmon to a normal you get all salmon babies. Will the babies also be super salmons, or will they be poss supers?

They will all be 'normal salmons', or codominant.

If you breed the super to a 'regular' salmon, the boas will be half co-cominant (regular salmon), half dominant (supers).. but since you can not accurately visibly differentiate, they will all be considered possible super/dominant salmons.

Cool?
-----
'Tis not the stongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' CharlesDarwin
Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo

>They will all be 'normal salmons', or codominant.

No salmon boa is "normal". A normal boa constrictor looks like the majority taken from the wild. That lets out all salmons.

A boa constrictor with one salmon mutant gene paired with one normal gene is a salmon or heterozygous salmon boa constrictor.

>If you breed the super to a 'regular' salmon, the boas will be half co-cominant (regular salmon), half dominant (supers).. but since you can not accurately visibly differentiate, they will all be considered possible super/dominant salmons.

A boa constrictor with a pair of salmon mutant genes is a homozygous salmon boa constrictor. Slang for homozygous salmon is super salmon, which is derived from the "super tiger" reticulated python. The homozygous tiger or super tiger retic can be reliably distinguished from the heterozygous tiger. As apparantly many of the homozygous salmon boas cannot be distinguished from heterozygous salmons, "super" isn't very descriptive here.

Dominant and codominant do not describe an individual animal. They describe a mutant gene. A mutant is a dominant when the heterozygous mutant animal looks like a homozygous mutant animal or when the two cannot be reliably distinguished. A mutant is a codominant when a heterozygous animal can be reliably distinguished from both a homozygous mutant animal and a normal animal.

Call me picky about vocabulary if you will. But IMHO, there is no benefit to using a genetics ghetto dialect. Especially when some of the readers of this forum will eventually take genetics courses where they will be required to use the standard definitions. And others will eventually work with species where everyone uses standard definitions.

Paul Hollander

The person who asked this question initially did so because he was unaware of the possiblities/genetics.. He doesn't have a degree in Herpetoculture/Herpology ...
I'm not saying that you do Paul, what i'm saying is that he probably didn't understand what you meant!
I was trying to explain it in simplest terms...
if I say a normal salmon, or codominant after he referenced a supersalmon, how could you turn that around to try to say I was refering to a common wild boa?

Thanks for letting everyone on Kingsnake know they are speaking and selling in 'Ghetto Genetics'...

and by the way, I don't disagree with your breakdown, but show me JUST ONE ad for a Het for Salmon or Homozygous Salmon.

Thank you
-----
'Tis not the stongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' CharlesDarwin
Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo

I understood exactly what you were saying and I'm sure the original poster did too. The other guy is just being picky.
-----
JMHO, FWIW, YMMV.

these genetic terms can be quite confusing sometimes...
that was an informative post, thanks!

I understand trying to use 'lay-man' terms when explaining
the genetics to someone who doesn't understand (i was so
confused in the beginning when learning about corn snakes lol)
but we also do need to make sure the terms are correct..
or it will lead to more confusion down the line for the
people trying to learn.
that whole 'red-tail' boa for BCI is such a mess, it seems
'we' (as in the forum) are always trying to clear that up.
So many people miss-use hybrid when they should be saying
integrade or locality-mix too.

n/p
-----
'Tis not the stongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' CharlesDarwin
Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo

What do you mean by normal? If you mean normal as in non-salmon then crossing a super salmon with a normal boa will indeed give all salmon young but no super salmon. Each snake passes on one gene to the young so each would have a salmon gene from the super salmon and a normal gene from the normal. This would explain why they are all salmon. This would also explain why none of them would be super salmon. ie. a super salmon has both salmon genes and a normal has no salmon genes so the young would have one salmon and one normal. For a much better explanation than I can give go to: http://www.reptimania.co.uk/genetics2.htm. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand boa genetics.

Josh