Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last post turned up missing. So here are some pics of the 2008 CIRCUS balls. The two that are out are 1.1

Thanks jim

Those are cool look'n. Thanks for sharing the pic's.
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Education is Everything.......

Congrats Jim. They look sweet!
Brendan

Forgive my ignorance but they do look exactly like clowns. Whats the story?

Here's a link to one of the orginal threads concerning the "Circus" ball.

2005 Circus Ball Thread

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Louis Kirkland
Cornerstone Reptiles

np

Check out the Barkers' Pythons of the World, vol. 2. The original circus ball is in that book. These new babies express all the traits of the father.

another " wild yet different " special" female deal???

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good luck.....
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hhsdhieesrqRr

Congratulations.

I read your 2005 thread, is my understanding correct:

2004 - Bred proven line het clown male to assumed wild caught female and produced bozo. Didn't see a picture of bozo in that thread so don’t know how close it is or isn’t to circus.

2005 - Bred same het clown to same wild caught and produced original circus. Pics definitely look clown like to my inexperienced eye but also different.

What where the parents of these 2008 animals?

One theory is that the assumed wild bred rescue female has a new mutation of the same gene as clown and combined with clown has a variable effect that can produce either bozo or circus (do they look a lot alike?).

If the mom(s) of the 2008 animals where some of the 2004 siblings of the bozo then it's possible they where hets for the clown mutant version of the allele and not the new bozo/circus version. If they are even alleles that is but if they are then normal looking animals from the 2004 and 2005 clutches would at most be het for one or the other but not both. If the father of this year's babies was either the circus or the bozo (was it male?) then it's also possible that the 2008 animals are 100% clowns. Which of course is nothing to sneeze at. That's a lot of assumptions from what you might have breed to if they there is a multiple mutant allele relationship here so I might be way off.

In this theory half the offspring of the 2005 circus would get his bozo/circus mutation and the other half would get his clown mutation. Did you ever get a chance to breed him back to the rescue female to try for a homozygous circus? Of course some of his 2004 or 2005 sisters could also carry that version and produce the homozygous bozo/circus.

I found a link to your 2007 production on the RDR site.

Here is an extension to the theory. The names are a little confusing right now distinguishing phenotype names from theory genotype names but of course this theory could be totally wrong on the genotypes anyway. But for purposes of this post I'll use the following:

new mutation: A different mutation of the same gene as clown carried by the original rescue female

clown: The established mutation carried by the original het male

bozo and circus: Individual phenotype variations of what you get combining one clown mutant version of the common gene with one "new mutation" version of the same gene. These would be sort of like the cross line leucistic that can give either mojave or lesser to an offspring but not both. IF new mutation and clown are alleles (no strong evidence one way or the other that I’ve found yet, but a hunch they might be alleles) then bozo or circus will give one or the other to each offspring but not both.

In this theory the mother of the 2007 morphs might have received the "new mutation" from her mother and the 2007 animals might be homozygous for the new mutation having received it from their father (the 2005 circus, right?). If the new mutation and clown are alleles those 2007 morph babies can't also be het clown but some of their normal looking siblings could have gotten the new mutation from either parent or the clown mutation from dad but not both.

I take it the 2008 morphs had different mom(s) than the 2007? These mom's might have gotten the clown version of the gene rather than the new mutation version like the 2007 mom. Some of the 2004 and 2005 animals could be completely normal but many likely got either clown or new mutation but only the bozo and the circus got both.

Any pics of the bozo available? If the bozo looks more like the 2007 animals than the circus then I’m probably way off on this theory and maybe the new mutation is just a completely separate gene that happens to just combine well with clown.

One interesting test would be to take the 2007 morph animals and breed to a homozygous clown. If those 2007 morphs are homozygous for the new mutation like I’m thinking then bred to a clown they should produce 100% of the bozo/circus range of phenotypes.
2007

Randy - the Bozo doesn't look like a clown - it looks more like a blurry or velvety ball -- if you do a KS search you'll likely find picts.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Parents were 2004 BOZO, and 2005 CIRCUS ball

1st> In the pics below are BOZO ball and sibling sister

2nd> Is CIRCUS breeding his mother

3rd> Is a old pic when 2005 CIRCUS was born

thanks jim

Thanks. So the Bozo doesn't really look clown like at all but is apparently het clown and maybe some of its good looks come from that.

So what did you get from the circus to its mom? Did that pairing produce any of the really bright but only slightly clown like animals like in 2007? If so, I'd be all the more interested in what those 2007 animals do crossed with a clown. Might get 1005 like your 2005 circus.

I got 8 normal looking females

i love the ziggy zaggy pattern of that 1!!!!! nice!!!
~kin
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~Sober Serpents~
www.freewebs.com/soberserpents
Corns, Creamsicles, A Black Rat, Thayeri, Cal Kings, A Jungle Corn(Just A Pet), A Ball Python, A Bearded dragon, Leopard Geckos, Green Anoles, a Snapping turtle, and a white cheeked mud turtle

It does seem to have the clown gene..either way i find the busy pattern a lot more interesting than the regular clown.