Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well,im not that smart with the terms of geckos and all,but what is the term "het" mean?i see geckos for sale and it says soemthing like "66% for het" or soemthing liek that.what does it mean?also,what does the term "clutch" mean?thanks

-adam

Hets are animals that carry a gene for a reccessive morph but dont express the trait it carries, for example, this is how hets are made:
Albino X Normal = normal HET for albino
normal HET for albino X normal HET for albino = albino
You breed the hets together to get the trait to be expressed. I'm kinda new to this (leos) too so someone else will have to explain 66% hets and such.
A clutch is when a leo lays eggs, its usually a clutch of two, which pretty much means the leo layed two eggs. So when a leos lays, it a "clutch" of eggs, get it? Like with cats they have a "litter" or four or something, same thing but with geckos. Hope this helps
Mac

When two normal het for albino are breed together one out of four will be albino half will be normal hets for albino and one out of four will be completely normal. Since hets look exactly like normals all of the geckos that look normal are called 66% het for albino. In truth the wording of this isn't accurate all this means is that if you buy this gecko it has a 66% chance of producing at least some albinos when breed to another het or full albino. Once a possible het is proven it becomes a full het. This is true for all genetic traits such as patternless and blizzard. Homozgynous is the opposite of Heterozygous (het) and this just refers to any animal that has all similar alleles.

Het stands for heterozygous. This is a genetics term. An organism is heterozygous for a trait if it carries the trait, but the trait is not expressed. THis means it doesn't look anything different from the "wild type". When a percentage is given, it is a relative number given to all the babies of a clutch. "Clutch" is the name for the group of eggs or babies given birth by reptiles. If someone said they had a 66% het clutch, then in theory 2 out of 3 should carry the trait, but it is het so you can't tell by looking at it. You must breed the animal/plant to determine if it is really het. The best way to do this is breed your "possible" to a mate that is homozygous for the trait (meaning it shows it). Unless you have horrible luck, since it is all about odds, you will produce some babies with the trait. Still again it is possible that you have a het and no homozygous were produced, giving you a false answer to your het question. When some says it is a "proven het". It means that at birth, it was 50% or 66% chance that it was het, but after being bred it has "proved out", so now they are sure it is het. 100% het means it is known since birth and proven means it was determined later.

Matt