Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Understand this people, and please read this slow and maybe even read it twice before replying. Regardless of who does not like who and all that stuff the things that we should be focusing on are not being discussed.

I want to talk about Jellies, not solely on PBs. I also need to mention I may have been calling the red eye amel brooksi T when I should have been calling them T-s. So now let me call them red eye albinos

If you have an albino and breed it to a 100% het albino you should get roughly one half the clutch being 100% hets and the other half albinos correct?

Now the PBs do NOT have pink eyes, and are suspected to be a form of Hypo.....which is still only suspect...but some friends and I guess for now that it is. But back to the Jellies

The PB was bred to the red eye albinos and all the babies came out as jellies with one being the oddball which appeared more closely resembling a normal. How many of us have bred a 100% het to a morph and got almost all morphs? No one I know of....

This is where the comparison to a co dom, or more specifically the ultra gene in corns comes into the picture. This project yielded way too many morphs of any kind for it to not be something unusual at the very least. Why anyone wants to argue over this is beyond me? People keep thinking of Ball and Boa morphs....and I do not think that is way off base like some people seem to think but the real comparison is to the Ultra gene.

If something new appears from combining 2 different morphs, especially one red eye and one without red eyes can you not even think for a minute that something sort of dominant is influencing this? If not.......tell me why? This was not a clutch of normals with a Jelly or two.......it was clutch entirely of Jellies with only ONE normal. People seem to ignore this.

This is unheard of in ANY breeding of any combo of morphs that I have ever heard of excpet maybe super salmon or super ghost boas...but let's not go there since I am not sure. Red Eye Albinos and Peanut Butters are like night and day, they have no similarity. Jellies are simlar to Peanut Butters when they mature....so why is the term dominant so unbelieveable?

Furthermore what does breeding the Peanut Butter to a normal brooks have to do with finding out if it is co dom WITH AMEL? NOT A DAMN THING! So please keep an open mind. Think Jelly, not simply Peanut Butter. Even if we discover that it is a unique gene like Ultra we will still have work to do deciphering Peanut Butter, and the few of us working with these can live with that. The waiting part stinks but still, this is just the way it will have to be.

Forget about co doms and whatnot in boas and pythons. Maybe look into Ultramels on other forums and look at some pics. It is an interesting gene and the Peanut Butter may be even more unusual. I keep saying MAY BE, not DEFINITELY IS. Some people need to settle down and try to understand this is about something not easily understood. Instead it is turning into the typical situation where people have no choice but to defend themselves on the forum and potentially get themselves into trouble.

These long posts stink.......people read fast and lose focus. So tell me what you think about these things. But do not reply until you have read everything and if you do not understand something just ask me to rephrase it and maybe we will get someplace. I have repeated myself a few times on some of this stuff and I want to particpate, I feel I have to, but this is taking up a lot of my time and soon I will have to call it a day. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Hey Tom,

Don't know what happened in here since I left this afternoon but since there's several posts not here anymore I imagine we had a conflict of personalities again

Regarding the Ultra corn comparison. I haven't seen the photos of this years offspring but the clutch that my Jelly came from contained no normal snakes at all....there was a darker snake completely unlike the others but it still wasn't normal although it might appear so at first glance since the Jellies are so striking..If you take a closer look at that snake you will see it's very different from a normal brooks...it's not a jelly but it's not a normal either. That's one of the reasons for the co-dom theory.

And since there's no way to prove a mutations inheritence without several breeding trials involving normal animals, I mentioned that I would be taking that route with my Jelly & my PB...It may in fact be an alleic situation like the Ultra corns. But I am guessing theres more to it than that. And while I think there's usually nothing wrong with putting out thoughts on what might be going on there seems to be those that disagree vehemently with my theory about PB being co-dom so...until my PB x WC & Jelly X WC clutches hatch further argument is unproductive. The same things goes on in other forums about new genetic mutations and while everyone agrees "breed it and find out" is the only way to prove it....possibilities are thrown around without the venom that seems so prevalent here...

If anyone wants to know why I think what I do about the PB gene and see photos of why I believe it to be true feel free to email me directly....if you are interested

Horridus@aol.com

Thanks for posting Bart. I understand where the doubters get off ranting over the situation but one of the differences in the Python vs Colubrid market is the pricing which really makes new morphs a touchy subject. I just wanted to attempt to show people other than the regulars on here who post often....as I keep meeting people who read but do not post....... that there's some things to ponder with the PBs and Jellies. The thing that does more harm than good is when the people who post the most start posting 10 times an hour on one topic and no one else contributes at all since they probably fear attacks? I wonder why? LOL. I was also trying to show people how much time and effort it may take to do a project like this if crossing it into many other morphs is part of the game plan. I mean no one has mentioned the fact that crossing these snakes into every female morph available could easily taint the next years offspring with sperm retention. Take a huge chunk of your potential earnings away from your standard projects, or turn out to amount to nothing after years of patience and maintenance. To expect this from one or a handful of people is no big deal to those who just want a straight answer. I think quite a few people look forward to seeing the answers with an encouraging type of attitude, and there's the others who want it to fail miserably so they can do whatever it is they do when they get thier way. I'd like to see the shoe on the other foot..... and see some of these guys get angry due to people never being satisfied with any answers they have to offer to questions on here but as I mentioned I am too busy for this stuff these days. I have to hope you read some of my other posts on the now deleted post as I was really typing my brains out trying to give people some things to consider. In my opinion these snakes are so far from typical I just don't understand why some people won't give it a minutes thought without shooting down some of things we have been talking about. We'll have to talk about this off the forum soon for fun, I think this is very interesting and could really turn into something many people would consider working with. Time will tell
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

I got some info from a very reputable Corn Snake breeder, but I feel it is best to leave his name out of this so take this for what it is worth, to me this is worth A LOT as far trying to make my comparison. Here's a bit about what we discussed as far as Ultra Corns, we did not really discuss the Kings...

Now is Ultra not a Hypo that is co dom with Amel?

Right. Not hypo. It's on the same locus with albino.

Ultra is a recessive trait until you breed it to a corn homo or het for amel. Then, it's codominant.

And are Ultramels the
Amel version of of Ultras?

Yes, sorta. Ultramel is one of the het forms of ultra. It's the only het form that is a morph unto itself. Amels cannot be het for ultra. Only non albinos can be het for ultra.

Is there het for Ultra and het for Ultramel?

See above. Ultramels are one het form and normals can be het for ultra. Since ultramel is a complex of the amel locus genes, nothing can be het for ultramel.

The argument which will certainly happen is there are no hets for co
dom. Any input would help me a lot.

I don't know enough about genetics in general to agree or dispute that statement, but Ultra in corns IS codominant. Codominant ONLY with amelanistic. It genetically behaves as a recessive when bred to non albinos so obviously corns can be normal looking and het for ultra.

Seriously give some thought to this info and apply it to the Peanut Butter and Jelly. Hopefully some of you will see what I was getting at. Sometimes things are not as easy to explain as we hope them to be. There's also things I have referred to in the past as "complex recessive" instead of simple recessive. This could easily fall into that category, as I keep saying time will tell, but no one should be throwing accusations in the meantime. I hope this helped you see where I am coming from Thanks Tom Stevens

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TomsSnakes.com

>Is there het for Ultra and het for Ultramel?

>See above. Ultramels are one het form and normals can be het for ultra. Since ultramel is a complex of the amel locus genes, nothing can be het for ultramel.

It helps to actually specify the genes in a given gene pair. I use "//" to symbolize a pair of homologous chromosomes. And name1//name2 means a homologous pair of chromosomes with the gene name1 on one chromosome and the gene name2 at the same location on the other chromosome.

amelanistic//amelanistic = two amelanistic mutant genes. Amelanistic; no melanin and pink eyes.
ultra//ultra = two ultra mutant genes. Ultra; less melanin than normal, but is apparently not related to the mutant genes named hypomelanistic, charcoal, lava, or sunkissed.
normal//normal = a normal corn snake. Looks normal.
normal//amelanistic = heterozygous amelanistic. Looks normal.
normal//ultra = heterozygous ultra. Looks normal.
ultra//amelanistic = an ultra gene paired with an amelanistic gene. Ultramel. Looks more or less intermediate between an ultra (ultra//ultra) and an amelanistic (amelanistic//amelanistic).

If by het for ultramel the speaker means that there is a normal gene paired with one ultramel mutant gene and the snake looks normal, then there is no such thing as het for ultramel. Ultramel is a heterozygous condition by itself. "Het for ultramel" is as uncorrect as "het for het amelanistic".

>The argument which will certainly happen is there are no hets for codom. Any input would help me a lot.

Get them to look up the definition of "heterozygous" on www.dictionary.com. Once you translate the buzzwords to plain English, it turns out that heterozygous means that the two genes in a gene pair are different. There is no requirement as to what the animal with that gene pair looks like. Most of the pastel ball pythons in captivity have a pastel mutant gene paired with a normal gene. The pastel gene and the normal gene are different. Therefore, a ball python with a pastel gene paired with a normal gene is heterozygous. QED.

>I don't know enough about genetics in general to agree or dispute that statement, but Ultra in corns IS codominant. Codominant ONLY with amelanistic. It genetically behaves as a recessive when bred to non albinos so obviously corns can be normal looking and het for ultra.

I would say that amelanistic is a recessive mutant gene and ultra is a recessive mutant gene. If you want to avoid the word "codominant" altogether, you can just say that a snake that is heterozygous ultra//amelanistic (ultramel) looks more or less intermediate between an ultra and an amelanistic corn.

In the lab mouse, there is a mutant gene that makes a mouse solid black. One of that gene's alleles makes a mouse solid yellow. Go figure.

Welcome to the wonderful world of multiple alleles.

Paul Hollander

This part..."Het for ultramel" is as uncorrect as "het for het amelanistic".
Man it is the little things brought to ones attention that can make something easier to understand. I will have to read your post a few times to fully understand it all but I appreciate you taking the time to help out. After the results of next years breedings we will have to email you for your opinion. These Kings seem to have an element to them we just can't put a finger on. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com