Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, now that I have your attention I will try and explain my reasoning. Thanks to Phil down below for his post on random mutations to bring this to light!

Now everyone knows that the first Motley ever born was a completely random creation of nature. Okay. So whatever odds that is, it was born.

Now Jeremy bred one of his early Motleys to a normal. Right.

So he should get Motleys and Normals, but....

he got an extra surprise....Purple Patternless!

Soo....
how?

Well. Imagine the sire was not a motley, but other than that single allele he had the same genes. That litter would have been one to produce a random mutant Motley, just as the first motley was born. Everyone following?

Now, the sire WAS a Motley, so that baby that normally would have been a RANDOM Motley ended up getting smacked with ANOTHER Motley allele from dad. So...

BANG! Super Motley!

Something more...
With all the random neonates from crazy litter, often it is attributed to unknown hets, but they aren't actually hets, (I am sure some are) they are random genes. Now with things like Jeremy's T-plus X Motley that produced two T-plus Albino was not the same thing. That can be explained by parthenogenisis because the female was the T-plus and the two baby t-plus albinos were both girls, and homozygous t-plus obviously. Like little clones. Which makes sense, everyone has seen identical twins from the same egg, that have the same genes but different phenotypes, clones must only have IDENTICAL genotypes, they can vary in appearance.

Good stuff, What if the genetics just didn't play like they were suppose to and the super (purple pattenless) just had a double copy of that motley gene.. Could be.. You might have said that already...LOL...

Here is somthing to think about.. With all of the recent cases of parthenogenisis, say you bought a 100% het from someone for what ever trait.. Is it really a 100% het? Maybe it's a parthenogenic norm from the normal mothers genes.. You never really do know, statistical an numberical ideals are not what always happens..
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Ed Lilley, www.constrictorsnw.com
www.reptileinsider.com

on the Parthenogenisis stuff.

A lot of people have asked why is parthenogenisis only occuring in boas recently. Well, it is just that with homozygous morph females X whatever, you can tell in the babies. With something like a male recessive bred to a female normal, if parthenogenisis did occur we wouldn't know.

What we need to figure out is what causes parthenogenisis to occur, there must be some trigger. If we can figure this out we can replicate recessive morphs in the F1, and we can stop the things like you mentioned from occuring.

I have heard others say what you did on the first SM, I never really believed it, but there was no other answer I could see. This one just hit me. I don't even know if it is possible for a mutation in the heterozygous state to mutate on its own and replicate in the offspring. Wouldn't that mean that for that gene the baby didn't get anything from the mom on that allele? I don't think that is possible, but I also never understood how this would work in theory also.

Well things don't always work the way they are suppose to, if they did there wouldn't be any questions..

I have seen a good few births that look to be parthenogenic, and the majority of them seem to come from young males breeding, or litters with high slug counts. My speculation is it's some type of throw back genetic reproductive back up, that some reptiles and amphibians seem to have..

A friend of mine bred a salmon to an argentine recently, and had only 3 live babies with the rest of the litter slugs. It was a male hypo bred to an argentine, and the 3 babies are the spitting image of pure argies. (I have seen pleanty of crosses and these don't look like them) I don't think he's had a chance to sex them yet, but I bet they are girls..

What was the out come on the sexes of Ceilias hypo motley litter anyway?
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Ed Lilley, www.constrictorsnw.com
www.reptileinsider.com

were all female. The problem was some where hypos some were not. And a number look different. My theory on that one was retained sperm from the Jungle male the previous year, and all the slugs (half the litter was slugs) were males.

Anyway, I have been hearing that young males are the cause for these results. It makes sense for nature to have a back up, I just want to know how and why it works, lol. I think this needs to be explained more.

I haven't spoken to Celia recently but she was getting DNA testing done. I brought up the point that if some sample can be tested from the slugs if it is possible to determine what their sex would have been. I completely forgot about that litter with all the excitement this year and haven't checked back on it.

That occur from time to time,that defy what we expect to see...in regards to the "purple patternless" incident,I wonder how that particular Motley was produced? there are some oddities that occur with "dominant traits"(I'm refering to all non-recessives here.)without knowing the background of that particular animal,I wouldn't reach too far out of the beam of my own headlights,so to speak,and would look for more info from Jeremy,however there are certainly some interesting aspects of that theory to consider.(how's that for dancing around a puddle without getting my feet wet? *LOL* )
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HarlequinBoa.com Captive born excellence through applied genetic theory...and,astute observations based on a keen sense of the sometimes painfully obvious

n/p

Thought #1 (Humor) - You all might considering turning these genetic issues over to the Brookings Institute.

Thought #2 (Non-Humor) - Unfortunately, valid anwsers/explanations to these genetic questions are going to get "muddier" over time due to lack of disciplines in our hobby for "selective breeding" ... i.e. too many hybrids/crosses, not to mention marketing hype & gemicks simply chasing the almighty $$$. Just look at the discussions in the forum over the past year. (i.e. people posting pics wanting to know what they've got after a litter is birthed, or not knowing which of multiple males actually bred a given female, etc. etc.)

I fear that the genuine/known morph pool is going to be diluted with a bunch of mutts, and in turn, dilute the efforts of those breeders who have practiced "selective breeding" in a controlled, well thought out breeding program.

And folks, this is a hobby industry and there is no stopping it. We can only hope that the mutts find their way into the pet industry, and the genuine morphs stay in the hobby ... same goes for the human breeders.

Maybe there were actually more than 2 thoughts here?

Bill

Thought # 2 was actually funnier...but,you're right about the "chasing a buck" part...I think more often than not we've got to "wrap it up,and put a bow on it,so we can take it to market." it's the "hurry up and hypothesize" part that is more of a "shame" than any delusions of impurity.(The following comments were Rainshadow's opinions,and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of our sponser,our host,or the Pope in any way.)
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HarlequinBoa.com Captive born excellence through applied genetic theory...and,astute observations based on a keen sense of the sometimes painfully obvious

"wrap it up,and put a bow on it ..."?

Tim, I thought everyone shipped their boas that way? I bet there are a lot of disappointed recipients of those packages.

I really like the advertising by, I believe, Exotics by Nature, which states: "Buy the Snake ... Not the Deal" ... GREAT CONCEPT!

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HarlequinBoa.com Captive born excellence through applied genetic theory...and,astute observations based on a keen sense of the sometimes painfully obvious

Check the classifieds the bows are already being tied
Gonna get pretty sick of that name before to long.
Gonna be a full bandwagon before weeks end you watch!Good time to unload your Sharp stashs right about now and laugh all the way to the bank.

M/

EbN thanks for the motto!

np

I have been rubbing my chin and getting way too into this recent surge. That is all good but sometimes you just need to sit back and stop rubbing your chin. I'm pretty sure I have a bare spot. So I'm guessing it's not genetic if my chin balds before my head.

Phil Goss