Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Another newbie question, but what is a piebald marker? Is this something visible on a het? Thanks.

It is said to be solid black lines on the sides of the belly of a Het animal.
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www.HeathersHerps.com

-Ohh, what a Lady-

Balls for Life, Baby!

Het Pied markers are not foolproof. Not all het pieds have them and some normals have them too. Best way to be sure a het pied you have is indeed a het pied, is to breed with another het pied or a pied animal.

In buying a het pied from a breeder, ask to see the parents, as long as one is a pied, should then have 100% het pied offspring...but any other combination, it won't be a 100% het (could be 50% possible het, or 66% possible het..which most breeders sell them as such, the honest ones at least, or those who bought them from other sources and have not proved them out yet)
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PHLdyPayne

Het pied "markers" are a joke, I think, played on us by the morph gods and/or Satan.

Theoretically, long black lines on either side of the vent on the belly are the markers...but a LOT of snakes actually have them, without being het for pied. In a batch of 30 CH babies, I saw at least 10 with the het pied 'marker'. I have hatched out a couple babies with het pied 'markers'.

Pied is not a trait that is visible in its heterozygous form - that would be a codominant trait.

Breeders will usually hold back babies with 'markers' though, so maybe in a decade all het pieds really will have those markers. Hah!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

Jen,
With your limited experience, I would hesitate to call het pied markers a joke. While everything you said about them is true, there is enough evidence to say that there is indeed something to it, although it is not 100% accurate. I would like to pass along a quote from someone who breeds a lot of pieds. "Why sell possible het females, I know which ones are het and which ones aren't. So, why sell possible hets for less. The ones without markers get sold as normals, the ones with markers aren't 100%, so I can't sell them that way, but I hold them back".
Mike

If I'm mentioning "Satan" in the same breath as the claim that het markers are a joke, maybe I'm not being totally serious.

I think the angle I was taking was more CH or petstore snakes that have the 'marker' are not particularly likely to be pied. But, in breedings where the parents are known and in each generation, the "marker" babies were the ones held back...It's logical to think that any non-pied babies that carry the marker are likely to also carry pied.

Your quote highlights exactly what I just described - if your friend sells all the "normal" looking babies from his breedings, and only holds back snakes with markers, he is selecting for snakes that display that marker. Not all hets have the marker, and not all snakes with the marker are hets.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

Agreed. I don't think its necessarily a joke or untrue. Howver, not all snakes with the marker are hets, and not all snakes without the marker aren't.

My het pied pair from Pete Kahl don't have the "markers," but they most certainly are hets.
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Cheers!
• Chelsea Lynn Gardiner
(and Frank M. Wood)

So to sum up, if it's not 100%, then it's not a marker. I know that a super pastel "marker" is a pastel, 100% of the time. Therefore, it's a marker. Not 100%; not a marker. Let's call it an educated guess.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

Check out the link below for a visual of het pied markers.
Link

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het pieds look just like het everything else, normal.

Well put der dood.
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globalreptiles.ca

...i would not totally discredit markers. while i would not put 100% faith in markers i would look for them IF buying poss. hets. i say them because i, myself, notice something going on in the eyes of the het pieds ive personally seen. ive seen the same trait in normal bps, but not often. also, i was told by a breeder of lav albinos that hets often have a discreet marker.
i hope to have about 15 50% pieds this year, and will be keeping track of markers proving out, or not.
joe

I'd be curious to know the results of that experiment!
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Cheers!
• Chelsea Lynn Gardiner
(and Frank M. Wood)

No, Jen is absolutely right

With your reasoning, what do you make of 100% Het-Pieds without those markings? I was told by Pete Kahl that this theory was put forward to boost sales of possible hets by other breeders when pieds were $25K!

This BS Pied marker theory stuck and we are left debating it

When are people going to accept that there is nothing visual on het recessives.

Did Pete say the marker theory was invented by people to sell poss hets, or did he say that it was exploited to sell poss hets.

I agreed that what Jen said was factual, but it wasn't a joke. It is certainly not 100%. When she called it a joke it sounds like it is a scam, like on the ads where everyone tries to sell a normal as the next new morph. When I sell my hets, I point out the marker.

I know it isn't 100%, no one ever claimed it was. I know there are plenty of snakes with the marker that have no connection to pieds. I'm sure someone has found some of these with markers and sold them as possible hets to exploit the marker theory. On the other hand, in years past when I bred a few clutches of het to het, or het to normal I was glad to see the ones with markers. I kept all of them anyway.

I just took a quick count of the 100% hets I have (all produced by myself), the ones with the markers out numbered the ones without 21-3.

Mike

what say do you have in this mike? you only actually produced and kept a tally of the markers, and provided a true factual number of hets w/markers compared to those without. these other people were told about or read about the marker trait, and have no actual experiance producing hets or possible hets. im going to have to side with the peanut gallery on this one. LMFAO. good job mike.
joe

hey mike, i'll bet if you look at your ''non-marker'' hets, if you squint hard enough, you will find traces of the marker pattern, particuarly down by the vent. there are also a couple of more subtle ''markers'' that seem to show up in most hets. directly under the heat pits on the upper lip, pied hets usually have some speckling. most bp's [classic jungles are an exception] have clean white upper lips. also, the dorsal pattern on every het i own has gold markings crossing over the spine at least once, labby style. i can usually pick my ''marker'' poss hets out of a clutch before i flip them over using the overlap. my score? 17 100 per cent hets, all perfectly belly marked. 24 female [i don't keep stats on the males] ''marker'' poss hets, 22 carry good belly marks, 2 are a little shaky, but i like those secondary traits. i think these things are only important when breeding snakes of known pied lineage, not ch babies. by the way, pastel het pieds have the ''marker'', i think to disregard something so obvious is a huge mistake, how do you think pete kahl got so big? great luck to all, kurt d.

Mike - do the hets that you are breeding carry the "marker"?

I ask because my normals that have awesome het markers will pass it along to at least 50% of their offspring no matter what I breed them to. It's not a scientific study by any means but it does appear that the "marker" is genetic and may just be a phenotype that was early on bred into the pied lines and may not have anything to do with the pied gene.

It would be interesting if we could find a pair of hets that had no trace of the "marker" in their bloodline and see if they would produce markered offspring.

Personally I don't believe in the marker - but if I were looking to buy from a batch of possibles - yeah I'd choose the one with the marker belly - just in case - I certainly wouldn't buy based solely on the marker attribute.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

I agree with Mike, while not 100% it certainly IS a good indicator. Over the last 2 years I bred my male pied to a bunch of normal females... 91% of the hets had the markers. Mark Petros

I didn't think I was crazy.
Mike