Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We are so excited. After a couple of disappointing years with crushed eggs and incubator fried eggs we finally have a clutch of 100% Kalatoa island retics hatching. Very cute babies!
Rob and Hillary

I don't even know that locality.....

So, "Duh"!

Are they a dwarf? How about some pics!

Kevin

>>We are so excited. After a couple of disappointing years with crushed eggs and incubator fried eggs we finally have a clutch of 100% Kalatoa island retics hatching. Very cute babies!
>>Rob and Hillary
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I didn't have a camera with me last night, I'll get some pictures tonight. Most people just call them super dwarf retics. Because Dwarfism is genetic in most species of animal, the name “dwarf” is a bit of a misdirection with these snakes considering their small size is attributed to natural selection. There are also a couple of other islands that “super dwarfs” may come from, that is why I use their locale. Sorry for the confusion Kevin.
Rob

Are you saying the dwarfism phenotype expressed by these Bonerate Island chain retics is not genetic? How are you distinguishing between inherited genotype and that produced by natural selection?

Kelly

They are stating that nature selected these traits due to a small founder population and these animals are suffering from the effects of the inbreeding coefficient ? or more likely due to small prey types and fewer predators their small size was more advantageous to their survival and nature therefore selected these characteristics which suited their long term survival on an isolated island with little to no chance of "new blood" being added to the mixture and unless they are bred to each other the trait is not passed on because they are the same species not a sub-species ?. They need to elaborate....smiles

>>Are you saying the dwarfism phenotype expressed by these Bonerate Island chain retics is not genetic? How are you distinguishing between inherited genotype and that produced by natural selection?
>>
>>Kelly

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Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
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Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

You are right, I wasn’t clear on what I truly meant. When I think of dwarf I think of the show “little people big world”. Dwarfism is expressed in the heterozygous and the homozygous is fatal in humans. The Island retics are smaller because natural selection allowed smaller snakes to be more successful, however if you breed these to a mainland retic you get babies with a size in between the two. I can’t argue the point beyond that.

original post. I believe now that you were correctly distinguishing a spontaneous dwarfism mutation from the reduced body size genotype produced, over many generations, by insular natural selection. Thanks,

Kelly

>>original post. I believe now that you were correctly distinguishing a spontaneous dwarfism mutation from the reduced body size genotype produced, over many generations, by insular natural selection. Thanks,
>>
>>Kelly
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Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
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Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

Here are pictures of a couple of the babies after 88 days of incubation. We did have four eggs die early but we got twins from one of the eggs to make up for it a little. It's starting out to be an exciting year. We still have Yellow Tail Cribos, Womas, Ring Pythons, a few colors of Ball Pythons and some other odds and ends comming. Thanks for looking,
Rob and Hillary

Very nice Rob. Nice to see some work being done with locality animals.
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Todd Spinosa

Ok, Now I understand....

Super Dwarfs....

Cool, very pretty! And Tiny!

Good job!

Kev
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"Satan™" is a registered trademark of NERD, Inc. Any copyright infringement is punishable by ETERNAL DAMNATION and some other terrible stuff.