Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't know what Hypo or het means. Or a bunch of other terms. It makes me feel like a moron, but I want to know what the crap people are talking about. I know it has to do with color morphs, but that is about it. Thank you to anyone who can explain it to me without making me feel like a bigger moron.

Hypo is short for hypomelanistic, which is showing reduced black pigment. Het or heterozygous means it carries the gene for a specific trait. For instance het for albino ball pythons would be normal in appearance but when bred together or back to an albino, would produce albinos.

I have a friend that's just getting into corn snakes. These terms confused him as well. There's a nice Glossary of Commonly Used Terms in this site's "Care Sheets/FAQs/Features" section. It's pretty useful and worth checking out.

Tim

Calfornia Herping Pics

AFter reading the definition for het I could see how that would leave someone still confused. After reading that, your next questions are undoubtedly, "OK, what do "allele and codominant mean?" Although this isn't a flawless explanation, let's make it simpler. "Heterozygous" essentially means carrying just one gene for a recessive trait. Since the animal only has one gene, it doesn't express the trait. If two het animals are bred together, the only babies that would express the trait are the ones that got the gene from both parents. That should be about 1/4 of the clutch.

Yeah. I understood that part, I was just unsure about what Hypo and Het were short for. I guess I'm still pretty new at all of this. Now, I just have to try and track down the breeder of my snake and figure out if it is a het.

"Heterozygous" essentially means carrying just one gene for a recessive trait. Since the animal only has one gene, it doesn't express the trait.

That is not what heterozygous means. Heterozygous means that an organism possesses non-matching alleles at a given locus. Whether an allele is recessive or not is irrelevant to the discussion of heterozygosity.

Your definition works in a few cases where we are dealing with a pair of alleles where one shows dominance, but it doesn't explain heterozygosity in all the other instances it can occur. What about heterozygosity in codominant traits?

I know you were trying to simplify, but I think there is a loss of information in oversimplification and that such a loss of information can lead to misunderstanding.

For example, trying to understand heterozygosity without understanding diploidy and syngamy makes no sense at all and is more confusing than if you just learn all the background information. I think that oldherpers glossary is great, but if anything, it could provide MORE detailed explanations rather than less detail.

We use all sorts of shortcuts in the vernacular of this hobby, but I think it is better for people starting out to try and learn it correctly, so they don't have to relearn it later.

In case I sound like an old nag, don't worry. The fall semester starts in two weeks and I will have a classroom full of fresh young nursing students to nag instead of you guys.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

HEHEHE, go out 'n herp Chris, before school starts! Need to see some more quality shots of awesome herps from you. Got any suboc or bairdi shots from some of your west Texas stints?
Todd Hughes

Hey Chris-
Any primer you can reccommend for those students not in your class? I confess Genetics and Probabilities hurt my head. A good guide might help.
Bill

Any decent biology textbook will have a chapter on inheritance that should explain it thoroughly. You can buy older ones for next to nothing in used bookstores.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

For someone whose formal zoology training was 30 plus years ago, I found "Genetics For Dummies" at the major book stores to be great.
I think it communicates well to multiple levels of readers, because the reader can seek their own entry point: beginner, intermediate, etc.

The author, Tara Rodden Robinson, is not pretentious, self-important, or condescending.

It sacrilegiously adds occasional humor, so if the readers are anal retentive, this is not the solution for them. They may want to go back to taxonomically classifying bottle caps and resorting their sock drawer!
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Regards, Bill McGighan

I think I have an old Biology text around here, and I'll dust it off. And "for Dummies" sounds right too. But I know I'll for sure get a pair of socks if I draw three and the chance for one sex or the other is even. Its after that point where the headache kicks in...Thanks guys
Bill

>>But I know I'll for sure get a pair of socks if I draw three and the chance for one sex or the other is even.

Just on the off chance that you weren't joking...no. It's too late at night to be sure of my combinatorics, but I think you only have a 75% chance. I suspect that this simple misunderstanding accounts for most of the gambling addicts on the planet.

Before anyone jumps on me, technically, this assumes you have an infinite number of socks in your drawer.

I am not jumping on you Larry. The problem for which I supplied the answer (3), is:
If you have a drawer with ten red socks and ten green socks,in total darkness, how many socks would you have to draw before you could be assured you had a matching pair?

>>If you have a drawer with ten red socks and ten green socks,in total darkness, how many socks would you have to draw before you could be assured you had a matching pair?

If by "assured", you mean a 100% chance, the answer is 11. But your chances after picking 3 are now up to 82%... Put the dice down and slowly step away from the table...

Well, now there pardner...I mean assured.

Think this thru with me.
If you draw a red sock on the first.
Then a green.(A red would make a pair in two draws).
On the third draw, either a red or a green will give you a pair.

Not a pair of any particular color; but a matching pair.

I think I'll roll again!

OK, last night I had an excuse. This morning (afternoon) I was just being dense.

You threw me off in your first post by using the word "sex". For some reason I interpreted this to mean the difference between a "left" sock and a "right" sock (which of course makes no sense). The probabilities I gave were for picking a pair (one left and one right) from a drawer of left and right socks.

Even when you specified red and green, I stuck with my first assumption and thought of a pair as one of each.

Duh...

its not the math that escapes me in determining probabilities, its formulating the question correctly. My head does not do that well. Hell, I spent the better part of an hour trying to determine the chance of obtaining a sexual pair at random by selecting two of a given clutch. Which I reckon is 50/50. But I could be wrong...

Normally, I'm pretty good at forming the question. I just sort of spazed on that one...

>>...the chance of obtaining a sexual pair at random by selecting two of a given clutch. Which I reckon is 50/50. But I could be wrong...

The problem with that question in the real world is that there's more to it than just the math.

If you knew for sure that the clutch was half male and half female, your chances are a bit better than 50/50. With 10 males and 10 females it's 55%, and increases as the size of the clutch decreases.

If each neonate has a 50% chance of being born male, you have a 50% chance.

But the sex of most reptiles is somewhat temperature dependent, so unless incubation temperature was exactly correct there will probably be more of one sex and you will have less than a 50% chance.

I would call it 50/50 and not worry too much about it...or buy a set of probes and be 95% sure...

...I was thinking the same thing....as red and green were synonymous with "left and right", "m/f", etc.

The "confusion" is really misdirection, I suppose. It stems from the dual use of the noun "pair". A pair of socks or cards is two of the same kind. We also use the same word to mean two of different kinds, as in a pair of kingsnakes.
The brain gets tricked.