Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been reading through the tons of posts regarding stripes and jungles and i'm wondering:
Isn't safe to assume that all normal geckos carry the genes for all morphs, there just all recessive? The first wild caught ones were *normals* correct?, and differing morphs came from selective breeding right?
Like the Adam and Eve senerio, if all of humanity came from those two, its safe to assume that they carried the genetic makeup for all of the differing characteristics (skin, eye, hair colour). Of course, evolutionary deveopement would have occured according the area one lived bringing out certain traits more than others, but this isn't true for geckos.
So in order to produce differing morphs, i can only assume they all carry the genes, they just are recessive and require a breeding process that wouldn't readily occur in nature.
Apparently, since we don't see these morphs in nature (to my knowledge anyways) then i would think, nature has kept these traits hidden because they don't serve the gecko any purpose in its natural environment. Besides, any morph out of natures norm
is pretty much an *opps* on a genetic level.

Thats my two cents worth, but i'll bring it back down to a penny LOL
Red

I think the main reason we don't see many albinos/tangs (whatever) in nature is that these leopards would be a prime target for predators. Imagine a bright orange lizard sneaking around trying to hide lol, you would see it a mile away.
I saw a website once, (don't remember the url) but it claimed that there were subspecies of leos in different locations. The pics looked just like tangs and other morphs, but this site claimed they were from the wild. I don't know if it was legit or not but something to ponder.
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There are several subspecies of E. Macularius, in fact I believe Albey is working with one in his snow project. saying that all wild leos carry the recessive gene is a statistical impossibility. This would make all wild leos hets and if you took two of them and breed them together you should get 1/4 homogynous Thousands of wild leos have been imported to start breeding projects and some breeders still import them today for outcrossing and as far as I know only two times was a genetic morph ever reported from the hatchlings of two wild geckos. Finally all genetic mutations were started (obviously) from mutations of the embryo do to various unknown factors it is just like people with dimples if everyone carried the recessive allele a lot more people would have them.

No, you can't assume all normal geckos carry all recessive traits. Recessive traits are mutations. Mutations happen all the time, some are postive for the organism and help adapt, some are not postive, and those animals tend not to reproduce. This is how evolution occurs. Sometimes changes are gradual, individual variation as to pattern and color (e.g. selectively bred traits), sometimes they are more drastic, a mutation, like albinism. Albinism is actually a defect on the gene. Sometimes a mutation causes disease, sometimes it has a cosmetic affect, sometimes it has unexpected benefits. For example, the reason you find so much sickle cell anemia in people of african descent is because that mutation (considered a disease in the U.S.) is protective against malaria. People with the mutation survived to reproduce, and so the mutation spread through the population via natural selection. There is another kind of mutation in some people of European descent that was protective against the Plague, and came into the poulation though a simlar mechanism then, this mutation also appears to be protective against HIV.

Because recessive traits only show if they meet up with a like recessive gene, and any het has a 50% chance of passing on that gene, these genes can travel though many generations undetected by phenotype.

I'm not going to argue, its my opinion that nature will, has and does weed out mutations or recessive traits that serve no purpose, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. They just don't get drawn out or are killed off before a large number is produced.
If the breeding of geckos started off with normals then the differing morphs we have today is due only to captive breeding.
Red

there is no opinions in this, it is just fact. if you need proof, find a vet who can do it, and bring in a normal gecko to get tested for any heterozygous traits. if all normal geckos were het for everything, there would be a lot more morphs, example an axanthic leopard gecko, which ive been waiting for for a very long time. im starting to doubt it will ever happen.
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

if you have AIM, IM me at iluvblackfrancis

Hi,

I didn't mean to say that one specific normal gecko will carry the genes for everything and produce offspring of all of the differing morphs. I said all normals. So if everything started off with the breeding of normals, then its human intervention that created these morphs through selectively breeding and inbreeding. It wouldn't have been a naturally occuring phenominon.
Was it one gecko with a mutation that started say......blizzards that one person began selectively breeding? Is that how all of the colour variations began, with one or a few geckos exhibiting a mutation (recessive trait), or did captive breeding programs world wide stumble across them by just breeding?
What is *axanthic* by the way? never heard of that before.

Thanks,Red

Mutations are naturally occurring, they happen all the time. Some things encourage mutation- like radiation, certain chemicals, certain drugs, certain viruses. Cancer is a mutation. Mutations can only be passed on when they happen in the sex cells though. Captive breeding and line breeding just helps people find and concentrate (create an artificalially large population of mutants via selective breeding) the naturally occurring mutations.

But these natually occuring mutations don't survive in nature right? Its still a case that from breeding normals all of the others came about?

Its funny how we find certain *mutations* attractive.
Red

some mutations do survive in the wild. i read somewhere that their is a small population of patternless leopard geckos in the wild. i hear that this morph comes from fluctuating incubation temps. so it would be my theory that ocationally a female lays eggs in the wrong spot, but instead of them, dying, they survive but do not form correctly, making patternlesses. these patternlesses breed fine, so in one shipment of WC leopards, some guy was lucky enough to get some hets.
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

if you have AIM, IM me at iluvblackfrancis

That guy was very lucky to get that shippment. Temps do have an impact on colour right? so if temps change at certain times during incubation then that could produce differing colour variations?
Red

Theoretically yes but there are almost always other factors involved such as to much or to little MSH which stimulates Melanocyte and melanocyte has various affects on pigmentation.

Most dramatic mutations do not survive in nature, but some do, the ones that are beneficial to the organism (adaptive), those mutations that give it an advantage that allows it to survive to reproduce, it is theorized that this is how great leaps in evolution occur. There are other mutations that crop up as phenotypes every once in awhile, like albinism and leucism, which pops up repeatedly as phenotypes in nature, though rarely. These differ from selectively bred traits because selectively bred traits evolve more gradually over time, they show up in the phenotype of the animal that carries it. But recessive genes for a trait can be passed on for generations without demostrating an evolutionary advantage, via hets.

Say an albino is born, and it survives to reproduce, creating 10 offspring, all het for albinism. Each offspring has 10 offspring, 50% of which will be het for albinism. 50% of 100 is 50. Now there are 50 hets. Each of the 50 hets has 10 offspring, and 50% of 500 is 250. Now there are 250 hets for albinism, all but the original which did not have the phenotype of albinism working against them. And so on and so on. Now in the real world, some animals won't reproduce at all, others will have more or less offspring, but you can see how a recessive trait can expand through a population invisibly, without having to "justify" itself from an evolutionary standpoint, as is not present in the phenotype of hets.

In your first post you said that you thought it was possible all normal geckos carry genes for all morphs and in your last post you said you didn't mean that any normal gecko carried alleles for all morphs. What were you asking? sorry if I misunderstood but this doesn't make sense. As for Axanthic this means lacking yellow an axanthic leopard gecko would look like a perfect snow and it would be a genetic mutation. However since red comes from the same cell as yellow you could also call an Axanthic Aneurythistic (sp?) which means without red.

I meant that the genetics for mutations and recessive traits must be in the population of normals because thats what i assumed started the breeding programs for the differing morphs we have now. As someone else pointed out temps could have an impact on colouration cause patternless leopard geckos have turned up in nature. I believed that all of the morphs we have now were due to selective breeding only, a mistake on my part. Starling just posted that some mutations could survive in nature but not necessarily produce a population of offspring that show the trait, just be het for it. (((did i explain that correctly???)))
This is the reason i didn't become a biologist LOL

My only concern is that if i have both a male and female blizzard, will the offspring be blizzards??? What about a male blizzard, female patternless.......can i then breed the hatchlings to a blizzard and get blizzards or patternless and get more patternless? Or is it better to pair geckos according to colouration/morph?

Red

yes the original Tremper and Rainwater albinos were breed from wild hets shipped in. I am unaware of the other morph but I have heard that of the shipment of hets sent to Tremper all of which were hets sixteen were sent to other unknown people so it is possible that someone had or has wild hets and doesn't know it. All of your breeding scenarios work out fine and go ahead and breed double hets as long as you are willing to wait and house several normal looking leos.

blizzard x blizzard = all blizzard

blizzard x patternless = all DH patternless and blizz

DH patternless and blizzard X blizzard = 50% blizz, possible het patternless, 50% hets for blizz, possible her patternless
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

if you have AIM, IM me at iluvblackfrancis

Does this give anyone else a headache? I would prefer to have only 1-2 males, and right now i have one normal male. So i've been trying to decide what other morph i was going to get. Blizzard sounds good

Red

personally I think it nice to get a recessive morph het for another recessive morph, so you can get some suprises along the way. My original male is an tremper hypotang albino 100% het patternless, so I should have some nice suprises in my future.

Yes, the mutations we see now in the captive bred population came from normal-looking geckos that carries het traits, which were line bred, causing expression of those traits. This is not the same as saying all geckos carry all het traits, but some do.

Blizzard x blizzard will always give you blizzards. You can also combine morphs, such as patternless, which as I think you know means creating double hets blah blah blah til you get banana blizzards. Though I've recently heard some debate about banana blizzards and is it really the result of a patternles cross and if you want to discuss that it will have to be w/ someone else as I don't know.

Thanks, i'm sorry i didn't mean to say that all normals carry every trait etc. Just that the traits originally came from normals cause all captive breed ones were normals.....which i is wrong i know LOL

I'm not interested in breeding for profit, just pets, and having :1-2males and 2-3 females is just fine with me

Red