Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just bought a male blizzard to add to my breeding projects. I have an albino (tremper I beieve) female and if I breed the blizzard to the albino I will get normals that are double het for blizzard and albino right? Then if I bred some of the offspring to each other I could possibly get blazzing blizzards since blazzing blizzards have a double recessive trait of albino and blizzard right? would this be the only way to produce blazing blizzards?

Theoretically yes. You can breed a Tremper albino with a Blizzard and get double hets for both genes. There's a catch however.

Turns out Mendel's laws don't work quite as well when both genes are located on the same chromosome pair. When you cross breed a Tremper albino with a blizzard, the offspring will definately be het BUT the blizzard gene will be on one of the chromosome pairs and the albino gene will be on the complimentary chromosome. To pass on both traits to the young, both genes need to get put onto the same chromosome.

This is still possible but far less likely than Mendel's laws would suggest.

The phenomenon is called trait linkage.

Best way to get blazing blizzards would be to start with them.

Short of that you have better odds if you breed the following:

blazing blizzard x blizzard 100% het tremper albino = 50% blazing blizzards, 50% blizzards w 100% het tremper albino.

blazing blizzard x tremper albino 100% het blizzard = 50% blazing blizzards, 50% albinos w 100% het blizzard.

The above is as expected. You know for a fact that both parents possess both genes already on at least one of their chromosomes but now it can get weird due to trait linkage...

blazing blizzard x double het (genes on same chromosome) = nearly 50% blazing blizzards & 50% double hets (genes on same chromosome) plus some very small fraction of ordinary blizzards and albinos due to chromosome crossover

blazing blizzard x double het (genes on separate chromosomes) = nearly 50% blizzards het albino and 50% albinos het blizzards plus some very small fraction of blazing blizzards and double hets (with genes on same chromosome).

etc...

This chart might clarify or confuse (hopefully not the latter).

The above shows the breakdown of typical offspring from a fully recessive blazing blizzard and a double het blizzard/tremper albino where both genes were already together on the same chromosome in the double het.

If you use the 2nd kind of double het (with genes on separate chromosomes) then the total possible different outcomes remains at 16 but you will be far less likely to get a blazing blizzard as it will require at least one crossover to obtain.