Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It is way more fun to be paranoid and expect a conspiracy. Lets face it talking about how big, how colorful, how many eggs, etc… gets old after a while. “Conspiracy” now that is a fresh topic. Who know what will bubble up? I will start the conversation with some hard facts there is one breeder that IS working with a scientist that IS known to splice genes!!!
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Wow! I wanna kitty snake! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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- JENN ROSE -
www.jennrose.com

0.1.0 classic corn~ "Pumpkin"
1.0.0 leucistic texas ratsnake~ "Worm"

I was talking about making a morph through splicing in an albino, lucistic, pied etc.. gene into the snakes egg. Purring snake would be cool though!!!
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

I know, I know...I just couldn't help myself. It's a saturday and it's pouring rain and...well, I'm a dork.
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- JENN ROSE -
www.jennrose.com

0.1.0 classic corn~ "Pumpkin"
1.0.0 leucistic texas ratsnake~ "Worm"

...play a major role in Larry Niven's SF novel "A World Out of Time"-a genetically engineered species of long, legless cat is a popular pet on far future earth. They play only a peripheral part in the plot, but as a herper I was instantly attracted to the idea lol.

Brad Chambers

With some Ball Python morps some at $90,000.00 it really is not to far fetched. The money is there what if you could create a an all white snake and sell three for $40,000.00 each. Snake eggs are rubbery enough you can open them up and still have them hatch? I have done it!!! So implanting into snake eggs, piece of cake.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

First things first, before you can add a gene, you have to identify which gene it is that causes the desired trait. We know a lot about the genetics of many mutations, but that does not mean that we know the DNA sequence of the gene that causes it.

Second, most of these mutations are recessive traits that are not sex linked. That would mean that you would have to add the gene before the egg was fertilized, and then back cross the F1's to the mother to get any of what you spliced for.

Finally, this is not something that is easy to do. The first biologist that is able to pull something like this off will be doing it for journal publication and not to produce strange morphs for the pet trade.

Think of it this way, they were able to produce pigs that glow, but have you seen one of these creatures for sale?

Let us just say for the sake of argument that such a thing could be done. It could be one of the best things that ever happened in our hobby. It might help to end our obsession with odd colored snakes.

I ask you, what is wrong with what nature has cooked up for us? Nature and evolution has produced for us five major subspecies of Elaphe obsoleta, and three other color patterns of that snake that have lost their subspecies status. Then add to that the natural color morphs of each of the subspecies, and you need to have a lot of snakes to have just one of each of these morphs.

A natural colored Gray Rat Snake, now this is a handsome young snake!

It is being done as we speek. I do not know the ins and outs but yes it is being worked on. I was wondering what the outcome would be if an embrio from a fresh egg could be implanted into a different egg? Eggs are leathery so I have sliced them fixed them and had a good hatch so???
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

maybe Im confused here, but, what would just moving an ebryo from one egg to another accomplish. All the relevent DNA is in the embryo isnt it. You would still get the same snake.

ep

disclaimer: I have no idea what Im talking about
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Occupants not paying rent:
1.1. balls
1.1 corns
1 everglades rat
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2.1 cats

You are right about that. I think that someone is yanking Sighthunter's chain.

The opening of an egg is seperate from the gene splicing. We can make this interesting you share what you have heard and I will share clues untill you know what I know as fact.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Name the five largest money makers in Pythons.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Look, that doesn't interest me. What I am trying to tell you is that if you think this is going on, you need to look in the scientific literature to see if the genes in question have been mapped. If no one has mapped the trait, then you can discount the stories. Basic gene research is very hard, time consuming, and expensive. It years to map the human genome and they still have no idea what most of them do.

I did see where some python morphs are going at an asking price of $40,000 for females. It would take a lot of 40K Python sales to finance the cost of the gene mapping. Now ask yourself how much of a market is there for 40K snakes?