Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is Abbarancy? I grew up with it as a common term and no where do I see it anymore. I have seen many beautiful abbarant snakes bred, cross bred, and bred back without "suitable" efforts. What some would call abbarancy I know has been replaced by "striped","blotched", "splotched","vanishing pattern", "patternless" and "mosaic".
While these traits can be replicated, are they at all PREDICTABLE? I suggest they are ALL a part of the same "gene". Pattern anomaly. Outward phenotypic expression is and should always be considered different than a celluar level. As we conbine and refract genetic expression from here lets not forget who we are and where we are at as a community. Lets not get too involved in the hunt for the latest NEW THING and lose proper definition. I think it appropriate that "abbarant" is the term used to describe a ATYPICAL specimen. I think it important to not get too specific until heritability of pattern variation can be PROVEN to science. Its not enough to think of water being wet, its WHY its wet thats important. If you dont have an answer, its better left undefined, abbarantly.Jeff

>>What is Abbarancy?

I think that is an overzealous interest in a Swedish four person rock group from the 70s.

Abberancy on the other hand is something that is different than normal. Therefore, an amel snake is abberant as is a snake with temperature induced striping or one with a missing eye.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Abba! - damn, you're quick, Chris!

-Cole

>>I think that is an overzealous interest in a Swedish four person rock group from the 70s.

Now this....this is funny.

Jeff,

I think I understand your point much better now...alot of this is a result of marketing...that's why all these designer names replaced abberant. Also I think it's a way to describe the abberancy....vanishing pattern and striped nelsons are both abberant so you can't get an accurate idea of what someone is referring to (without photos) by just using the catch all term.

Polymorphic, if that's actually the correct word, traits that can be reproduced but not in predictable percentages are very common in cloubrids. It's a shame that some of them aren't recessive or incomplete dominant too, some are really beautiful.

I see you're point about everyone chasing the "next big thing" but it's human nature to want to do something exciting and to have people be impressed with you and/or your works. I think youth, inexperience, and the explosion of herpkeeping are all to "blame". There's alot more people keeping animals and alot more information (both bad and good) available to your average guy who has a few pairs of snakes than there was when I started out. And when someone hears a story about a new genetic mutation being found at a Petco, they automatically think that it happened to them to.

Ya, I think my point is made. I agree that line breeding can make some of the polymorphic animals more available. I agree that some of the names are completely appropriate(striped, vanishing pattern) but was I the only one "brought up" with the abberant term? Cal king mosaics are a perfect example of someone trying to figure out a pattern that simply cant be catagorized. I know we all want to be able to pigeon-hole things to make more sense of them, WE ARE MEN,THATS WHAT WE DO,lol.
As far as that pic, I would have been ok with the term "reverse stripe" as that would have not only have marked it as something to look for but to me it would have said that THAT was the look the breeder was going for. It would be wrong to tell anyone that its a co dom trait. ABBA, gee thanks guys,lol. J

>> And when someone hears a story about a new genetic mutation being found at a Petco

Moving little black dot morph.

Super dominant - get a snake with moving black dots on it - and the gene that causes it is so dominant that soon your entire collection sports the morph!
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

LOL, yeah that's a pretty common morph, you can pick them up lots of places. You newer guys don't know how bad it was though. Pre-Licespray days, a battle with mites was epic nowadays it's simple by comparison....

np

Abberant is just different from the accepted classic normal. You can see it. There are potential aberrancies that aren’t visual from known carriers. You may have trade names for every one and the combination of selected abberancies. A long time ago abberant was enough to know you had something different. It is far too vague to describe these modern multiple abberant gene carriers today. These are the gene carriers that have the potential to reveal new abberancies as all these alleles, locusts and genes do their microscopic magic. Selective breeding provides the opportunity to explore the Pandoras Box of possibilities that nature has provided our favorite critters, at light speed compared to natural selection. Once you have hatched out your masterpiece, it is through backward engineering that you have a better understanding of how it all works that brought you to this new reveal. Then you may strive to replicate it, and prove you know what you’re talking about.