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someone pointed out to me that the stripe gene is not the same in kings as in corns. Is this so? If you breed two stripes, you are not guaranteed het for stripes?
I bred an albino stripe to an abberant stripe. I found it strange that I got a couple banded, but just assumed they only got half the gene, but would be het for stripe. Is this not so? Also, the female was aberrant stripe (I call her spotted), and a lot of the babies were partial spotted or all spotted. Is this a gene thing or a pattern thing? Here is the mother, father and one of the babies.
another question, does anyone think the spotting is connected to the stripe gene?
thanks for any input

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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints"

Striping in cornsnakes is a simple recessive trait. That is why there are striped snakes and non-striped snakes (het or homozygous normal).

Striping in Cal Kings is NOT a simple recessive or dominant trait. Striping shows incomplete dominance, which is why animals produced by crossing a striper to a banded snake will be mixtures of stripes and bands ("aberrant" -which is a misnomer since there isn't anything particularly aberrant about them).

The spotting is just partial banding/striping.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Aberrant - other tahn normal, not normal.

In Arizona, banded cal kings is the norm, anything else IS ABERRANT.

Carlsbad, CA you can find banded, stripe and a mixture of both under the same board....so those would not be aberrant. That would be considered normal.

So most cal kings that aren't either banded or striped would be considered aberrant by definition.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

Kingsnake pattern is not based on a single gene. This means that normal mendelian principles simply don't apply in any kind of straight forward way. If you breed two stripers together you will probobly get mostly stripes, and same with bandeds.

As far as spotting... Some lines of spotting breed truer then others. That female of yours is killer! Sometimes the spots are an aberancy, and sometimes the spots are heritable.

Personally I think that spots are a combination of striping and spotting. IE spots are both a broken strip and bands without the sides at the same time. The reason why I think this is because my spotted lines consistently produce babies just like yours that are half striped and half spotted.

On some spotteds you can look at them and see which spots come from what patern. Here are pics of two siblings. The larger spoted female has the same underlying patern, banded up front and striped in the rear.

Just a side not, having produced numerous half banded and half striped cal kings, they seem to be banded up front and striped in the rear. Of course I have also produced some that had all three (banded, spotted and striped).

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

yeah, I have gotten quite a few with varying degrees of all three petterns as well. They are always more stripy at the back and more banded at the front. Sometimes the belly patern changes as well.

My point was that I think that spotting is exhibited in animals trying to express both striping and banding at once. not the only way that this phenomena can look, but one of them.

thanks.
I did not get any combo banded and spotted. Yours is neat looking. I got a mixture of regular banded and then on other babies, some that are only spotted and some that are a combo of spotted and stripe. I think I only got one stripe and it wasnt even 100% all down the back.
thanks for the response!
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints"

>someone pointed out to me that the stripe gene is not the same in kings as in corns. Is this so?

The striped gene in Cal kings is not the same as the striped gene in corns to the best of my knowledge and belief. The corn's striped mutant gene is recessive to its normal counterpart. In my opinion, the striped mutant gene in Cal kings is better described as a dominant mutant gene than as a codominant or incomplete dominant mutant gene.

Richard Zweifel did a paper on striped Cal kings in one of the issues of the Journal of Heredity back in 1981.

>If you breed two stripes, you are not guaranteed het for stripes?

A het striped Cal king has a striped gene paired with a normal gene. Such snakes have stripes, broken stripes, spots, or odd bands mixed with striped or spotted areas. None of them look normal (AKA banded).

Each of the striped snakes in the mating could have two striped genes. Or one could have two striped genes and the other could have a striped gene paired with a normal gene. Or each snake could have a striped gene paired with a normal gene.

1. If both parents have two striped genes, all the babies will have two striped genes.

2. If one parent has two striped genes and the other has a striped gene paired with a normal gene, then statistically, half the babies will have two striped genes and the other half of the babies will have a striped gene paired with a normal gene.

3. If both parents have a striped gene paired with a normal gene, then statistically 1/4 of the babies have two striped genes, 2/4 of the babies have a striped gene paired with a normal gene, and 1/4 of the babies have two normal genes and look normal (AKA banded).

>I bred an albino stripe to an abberant stripe. I found it strange that I got a couple banded, but just assumed they only got half the gene, but would be het for stripe. Is this not so?

All banded babies lack the striped gene. They have two normal genes. See Case 3 directly above.

>Also, the female was aberrant stripe (I call her spotted), and a lot of the babies were partial spotted or all spotted. Is this a gene thing or a pattern thing? Here is the mother, father and one of the babies.

The striped gene is expressed in a very variable manner. I don't know why, and as far as I know, nobody knows why.

>another question, does anyone think the spotting is connected to the stripe gene?

Yes. Spotting is among the known range of expression of the striped mutant gene, particularly in snakes with a striped gene paired with a normal gene.

Paul Hollander

> All banded babies lack the striped gene. They have two normal
> genes. See Case 3 directly above.

Are you sure?
I'm not convinced that all banded means no striped gene. I think there are several striped genes. Maybe some always express themselves in some fashion if present in a banded, but I'm not convinced that has to be the case all the time - and there could be banded looking inviduals that have striped causing genes somewhere in them, just not expressed.

DISCLAIMER - I really do not know. I could be flat out wrong.
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
1.0 CB L. getula nigrita
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

>I'm not convinced that all banded means no striped gene. I think there are several striped genes. Maybe some always express themselves in some fashion if present in a banded, but I'm not convinced that has to be the case all the time - and there could be banded looking inviduals that have striped causing genes somewhere in them, just not expressed.

I am inclined to believe that there are several mutant genes in Cal kings that change the normal banded pattern to something else. And some of those mutants may be recessive to their normal counterparts. A recessive mutant could be present in a banded Cal king, but the mutant would not be expressed when paired with a normal gene.

When I wrote "the striped gene", I meant the dominant mutant gene in Cal kings that Zweifel called striped and published on in the Journal of Heredity in 1981. I believe that this one mutant gene is all that is needed to answer the original poster's question. I should have made it clearer that the two striped snakes in the mating did not have any other mutant genes to complicate the issue.

Paul Hollander

thank you so much for the info. That is by far the most helpful info I have received.
One more question for you. Is albino a simple recessive? Since the father was an albino, are the babies het for it?
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints"

Yes, albinism is simple recessive.
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
1.0 CB L. getula nigrita
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

The reason that the pattern can not be predicted acurately is because it is controlled by multiple groups of genes. We do not know how many are involved, their places on the chromosomes (interference/ crossovers/ or other gene interactions), or even their patterns of inheritance.

If you breed two snakes that are pure breeding for only striped for several generations then yes, you will get striped babies because they have all of the information that codes for striping at each one of the required pattern genes and alleles. But that mating doesn't really tell you much about anything else.

This is very different from the simple recesive striped gene in corns.

The term heterzygous for stripe is meaningless because het implies that there is a single gene with two different alleles controling a trait. If you said a snake is a possible carrier for the banded or striped that is about as acurate as we can ge at this point.

And no, not all banded babies lack the striped genes entirely, I have gotten full stripes from two banded parents of unknown backgrounds. This is another reason why they can't be het. A het can only exhibit one phenotype. IE you cant be an albino het for normal, this would be the same geneotype as a normal het for albino but it can't have the recessive pattern showing!

And not all spotteds are the result of a broken stripe pattern.

I was wondering about the spotted part of it because some of my babies' spots are different. They don't appear to be a broken stripe. They are more symetrical or cubed. Where as some of the babies are clearly broken stripe because parts stick together to form a partial stripe.
So it seems to me that king snake genetics is much more indepth and technical than corns. I have enough trouble understanding corn genetics, so I don't expect to get much of the king stuff, then! lol.
thanks again
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****Misty****

www.sneakyserpents.com

"Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints"

>The reason that the pattern can not be predicted acurately is because it is controlled by multiple groups of genes. We do not know how many are involved, their places on the chromosomes (interference/ crossovers/ or other gene interactions), or even their patterns of inheritance.

Not to mention environment. Even the most identical of identical twins have different fingerprints because of environmental causes.

I see no good reason why the inheritance pattern for a gene that affects pattern cannot be worked out. Motley is a pattern mutant in the corn snake. Two motley corns are unlikely to have an identical pattern. Yet the motley mutant gene's inheritance pattern was worked out.

>(Three paragraphs snipped.) And no, not all banded babies lack the striped genes entirely, I have gotten full stripes from two banded parents of unknown backgrounds. This is another reason why they can't be het.

One of my friends got a very nicely striped baby out of a pair of Cal kings that we thought were banded. When we looked at the parents carefully, one had a couple of inches of stripe on the hindbody. Possibly the same was true for your pair.

>A het can only exhibit one phenotype.

I doubt that you can convince a black and white cat of that. Or a person with AB blood type.

Paul Hollander

> One of my friends got a very nicely striped baby out of a pair of
> Cal kings that we thought were banded. When we looked at the
> parents carefully, one had a couple of inches of stripe on the
> hindbody.

My local pet store was selling a labeled "chocolate banded" that had a tiny bit of striping up at the head. Top view it looked banded, but side view, you could see the stripe influence.

Down in the SF Bay Area, a lot of the gopher snakes are that way - which is probably the only reason I remember it and thought it interesting.
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
1.0 CB L. getula nigrita
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

>I see no good reason why the inheritance pattern for a gene that affects pattern cannot be worked out. Motley is a pattern mutant in the corn snake. Two motley corns are unlikely to have an identical pattern. Yet the motley mutant gene's inheritance pattern was worked out.

Mottley is a single gene. When a new single gene mutation occurs, it is possible through a short series of breeding trials to determine its pattern of inheritance. The problem comes in when you have multiple genes that interact in an unknown fashion. Breeding trials become too complicated, not to mention that it is difficult to obtain truely pure parental stock. IE are you sure that there is NO banding in the history of that perfectly striped animal. See what I mean? Untill genomic mapping becomes more common I doubt anyone will completely understand cal king patern.

>A het can only exhibit one phenotype.

>>I doubt that you can convince a black and white cat of that. Or a person with AB blood type.

NO. A het can only have one phenotype. I did not say it had to be the same as either pure phenotype IE a person who has one A chromosome and one B chromosome is ALWAYS going to have AB blood. Even with codominant traits this is true. A nn normal ball python will always look normal, a Nn ball will ALWAYS be pastel, and an NN will always be a super. I don't know about cat paterns but using your exanple, a cat that has both black genes and white genes will always have some black and some white fur. In you above post you insinuated that a snake could be striped and het for banded while another snake could be banded and het for stripe. This split CAN NOT OCCUR. All hets will have the same phenotype.

Paul Hollander

>In you above post you insinuated that a snake could be striped and het for banded while another snake could be banded and het for stripe. This split CAN NOT OCCUR. All hets will have the same phenotype.

Here are two ways the split can occur:
1) There are two independent mutant genes. One is a dominant mutant, and the other is a recessive mutant. People call both mutants "striped". One snake is het for the dominant mutant and is striped. The other is het for the recessive mutant and is banded.

The custom in genetics is to give each mutant a unique name to avoid such confusion. But that custom is not adhered to among herpers.

2. Incomplete penetrance. An individual is heterozygous for a dominant mutant or homozygous for a recessive mutant. But because of the influence of environment or other genes the mutant phenotype is not seen.

Also, many mutant genes show a range of phenotypes. Two black and white cats are both heterozygous for the dominant spotting mutant gene. But their spotting is not identical. Two motley corn snakes are both homozygous for the recessive motley mutant gene. But their patterns are not identical. Most heterozygous white-striped African fattailed geckos look normal, but some have a white spot on the head.

I would rephrase "All hets will have the same phenotype" to "most hets for the same mutant gene have similar, though not necessarily identical, phenotypes". This is also known as "variable expressivity".

Paul Hollander

Your first scenario is interesting and I will have to think about it for a while...

definetely possible, but I feel lke it would be unlikely.

Unless what if striping is a default? What if there are numerous genes that code for banding. Such as number of bands, width of bands, etc. If any of these genes were defective striping could be a default phenotype. Stiping may not even be a gene in and of itself, it might be the absence of another gene. We could be letting the whole dominant recesive thing lead us in the wrong direction. What if all of the banding genes are required for a phenotype and the only reason why striping is so prevalent is that there are many banding genes which have a higher probobility of having a mutant in their somewhere?

Hmmm... how to test any of this...

Either way, I don't think that anyone has enough information to be calling anyhing a "het" or any other definitive label for that matter.

and what about this guy?

>What if there are numerous genes that code for banding. Such as number of bands, width of bands, etc. If any of these genes were defective striping could be a default phenotype. Stiping may not even be a gene in and of itself, it might be the absence of another gene. We could be letting the whole dominant recesive thing lead us in the wrong direction. What if all of the banding genes are required for a phenotype and the only reason why striping is so prevalent is that there are many banding genes which have a higher probobility of having a mutant in their somewhere?

Whenever the biochemists look into matters, it turns out that there are many genes required to produce the normal phenotype. Think of it as a factory assembly line. Dozens of stations to turn out the finished product, and a mistake at any one station causes the finished product to be abnormal somehow.

One of the ways to produce a change from the normal phenotype is to have a gene totally deleted from the chromosome. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether this is a cause of the striped phenotype. I'm not going to do more the vaguest of speculating about it because I know I'm out of my depth.

>Hmmm... how to test any of this...

Genome sequencing. Microscopic examination of the chromosome banding patterns to find a correlation between a particular chromosome and the various mutants. Maybe other tests.

>Either way, I don't think that anyone has enough information to be calling anyhing a "het" or any other definitive label for that matter.

Have you looked at Zweifel's paper?

>and what about this guy?

I like him. Have you bred him? If so, what to and with what results?

Paul Hollander

That little guy is an 06 hatchling. He is the result of a banded male 1 gen removed from the wild, bred to a female with a broken/dashed stripe of unknown background. The clutch had 2 aberants like that one, 1 perfect banded, 2 full stripes, and 1 spotted pictured below.

I don't have any room to keep any more holdbacks this year, and I sold the female, so I guess I won't ever know what was going on with that line. This year I will be breeding a spotted from the same pair to a spotted from Renegade to see what will happen.

cheers

a sibling to the previous one...