Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a question I could use some help on. I have heard different answers from different people on this question.

I read on the Nerd site that they have bred ghosts from two different bloodlines that ended up not being compatible. I think Bell has Ghosts of different lines that are not compatible.

Is this also true with pastel bloodlines? For example, if I took a Mark Bell male pastel and bred it two a Graziani female would I have the potential for supers? Or would I just get a clutch full of regular Bell and Graziani pastels? Are pastels simply pastels? I'm sure the lemons are a whole different deal, but what about the "normal" pastel world?

I would appreciate any thoughts or breeding experience.

Thanks,

Jim Perron
Python Passion

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Thanks for the response boaboy00. What info are you using to support this? Please don't hear me questioning your thoughts...I'm just looking for some more specific examples of where you have seen these results. have you cross bred pastel bloodlines yourself, or have you seen other breeders successfully doing it?

I would appreciate your experience on this. I plan to invest into more pastels and want to make the right decisions. Thanks!

Jim Perron
Python Passion

Forgive me for sticking my oar in, especially as I have only seen pictures of pastels and never bred them. But here are my thoughts on the issue.

As NERD and others say that pastel is a codominant mutant, crossing two pastels of different lines would produce pastels whether or not the two bloodlines have the same mutant.

To be certain that the two lines did not have independent mutants, you'd need to cross homozygous pastels of the two lines. And then one or more of the babies would need to be crossed to one or more normals to see if any normals appear among the babies. IMHO, 20 or more pastel babies and no normal babies would be sufficient to establish that the the mutant in the two bloodlines is not independent. IMHO, only DNA sequencing could determine whether the two bloodlines have the same mutant or alleles with extremely similar phenotypes. But for the average breeder or buyer, I don't think that's a big concern.

Homozygous pastels have only been produced in the last two or three years, AFAIK. So I don't think there has been time to prove whether any of the pastel bloodlines are produced by independent mutants.

Those are the conclusions I have drawn from what I've seen on this forum and various web sites. I'd be delighted to learn more and modify or update those conclusions.

Paul Hollander

Thanks much Paul! Good thoughts on the matter.

If I had to boil down your thoughts I hear you saying the verdict is still out there on some of these bloodlines that are two or three years old.

I would love to hear further on this issue from someone who has produced a super from two different lines.

Thanks again for your imput, clearly you have done some genetics homework.

Jim Perron
Python Passion