Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yet another breeding question from a newbie.....

I have a lovely male Sunglow that came from Kathy Love. Last year I bred him to not-so-perfect Sunglow female that had more red and had retained just a bit of white around her saddles. I have three of the resulting babies and while they have the high orange color of the male, even the best hold back seems to have just a hairline of blank space around his saddles.

1) Do I need to find a perfect match identical to the male to improve the offspring? I know, even as I'm typing this it seems like a really dumb question....but I know that matched pairs aren't always identical.

2) Must one breed two motleys to obtain motley offspring? Is motley dominant, recessive, etc?

I've included a pic of one of the offspring. This was taken after the second or third shed last year. It's the lower markings that still have the blank space.

Sunglows are selectively bred amels.
As such - sunglow X sunglow does not necessarily equate to sunglow offspring. It is best to line breed if you intend to produce sunglows.

Breeed your offspring to each other - or the fabulous male to one of his daughters - and you should get some sunglows.

I've not bred sunglows, this is just what I gather from what I've read, so take some salt and add it.

With regard to your second question - motley is a simple recessive gene with respect to WT (normal) gene.

Genes come in pairs called alleles. In each gene pair, exactly one gene comes from the father and exactly one gene comes from the mother.

A motley has two motley genes in the gene pair. It can only pass on the motley gene to its offspring. Motley X Motley = Motley.

A het motley looks wild type, as motley is recessive to wild type, and sometimes can pass on motley gene and sometimes the wild type gene. So - Motley X het Motley will result in half the offspring (on average) being Motley, and half being het motley.

het motley X het motley results in 1/4 being motlet, 1/4 get only the wild type gene, and 2/4 are het motley.
-----
x.y L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
x.y L. getula nigrita (MBK)
x.y L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
x.y Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus (W Hognose)
x.y.z Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)