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Well this season has been an especially exciting one for many of us. About seven weeks ago I hatched out a clutch from a Double Het Leatherback from Josh’s line crossed to an American Smoothie. The result was very interesting. I hatched out 10 extremely smooth “Leatherbacks” out of 21 dragons. They were smoother than both my Italian Leatherbacks and my American Smoothies. So I spoke to Gary and Heidi of Caliente and asked what there breeding results were for the same male(Pancake) bred to other animals. They said they were getting very few Smoothies and none of them looked like the smoothies that we produced in our joint breeding. So at the show last weekend I spoke to Josh and he told me that he had produced 100% Leatherbacks from a breeding of two Leatherbacks from his line. Having not personally seen the results of Josh’s Leather bred to a Normal scaled dragon I thought at the time it could be a Dominant trait, but when I went home on Sunday night and looked at all my normal babies from Pancake(Double Het Leather) Josh’s Leather X Double Het I realized from all the information I had gathered from my breedings and the breeding of the two Leathers from Josh’s line that it had to be a recessive trait. I gave Josh a call yesterday and I told him what I was thinking. I think we agreed that that is the best explanation so far for what is going on in his line.

The interesting part now is where are these Super Smooth dragons coming from. Well as I said before when I bred a Double Het recessive Leather to an American Smoothie I produced approx 50% Super Smoothies and the rest had normal scalation but carry the trait to produce recessive leatherbacks. When I bred the Dbl Het recessive Leather to a Dbl het I produced Hypotrans, Trans, Hypos and normals all carrying the trait for recessive leathers but none showing the trait. So with all this information that I have gathered I believe that the Super Smoothies(recessive Leathers X American Smoothies) are Visual Double Hets(het silkback/het recessive leather). This is just a hypothesis and still needs to be proved out but it seems to be the most logical

Note: similar results have been attained from breeding Josh’s Leather to an Italian Leatherback.

Well where do we go from here? Well here are some questions:

Is the gene for recessive Leatherbacks on the same Locus as the gene for Italian Leatherbacks and American Smoothies?

What will be produced when you combine all of these traits together?

Bearded Dragons just got more interesting!!!

** All breedings with Pancake where done in cooperation with Caliente Dragons

**Congrats Josh

Pic#1 (L-R)Italian Leather - Recessive Leather X American Smoothie - American Smoothie (sorry for the poor quality pic)

Pic#2 Possible Quadruple Het (100% Het American Smoothie and recessive Leather , 66% possible het trans and hypo)

** Let me know if you have any questions **

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www.AlphaDragonZ.com

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This should read:

Pic#2 Possible Quadruple Het (100% Het American Smoothie and recessive Leather , 50% possible het trans and hypo)

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www.AlphaDragonZ.com

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hy i am alessandro, nice to meet everybody. it seems that something is going with this character.
first of all i will share some new experiences with the italian leath. i have made this year a cross with my silkback male and a normal female. i get the 100% but the result is different from a normal leath. they look more and more clean with smaller scales. a sort of cleaning the leath!!!!

now back to your new result. it is really interesting, we could think to what is happened in the boa crossing the sharp albino and the boawoman caramel. the result ended up with a new kind of animal with a different coloration. the animals were tested later on and they were double het for albino sharp and boawoman caramel. they called paradigm. they also made a sort of super form which is called paraglow.
it seems that he two gene combine together. i was thinking of the same thing happened crossing the italian leath and the recessive leath. (.....you need to find a name for this new character ...)

one question? does anyone have tested the compatibility of the american smoothie and of the italian leatherback?

best wishes
alessandro

p.s. sorry for my english, hope it is readable

Hey Alessandro,

Long time no talk. The Paradigm Boa is the exact example that I brought up with Josh on Wednesday. The Paraglow is Hypo het Sharp and het Caramel(T ) Boa. I know you are into Boas like I am and it should be very interesting to see if all of these alleles reside on the same locus. It would be better if they didn't but if they do that would be interesting too. There just wouldn't be as many possibilities if all these traits reside on the same locus. Lets hope that the recessive trait effects a different spot on the biological pathway in regards to the other two Codom genes.

So far we have two Codoms and one recessive but this just describes how they are inherited. It does not describe how they interact with each other. The recessive trait could be codom with regards to the the two Codom traits. Did I just confuse everybody. Anyways none of this matters until the rest of the breeding trials are done.

Your last question is the million dollar question??? I am sure everyone will find out sooner rather than later.

Later,

Randy
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www.AlphaDragonZ.com

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Hey Folks,

at first i great congrats on Josh an Randy, you make a amazing
work for the bearded community!!!

So i personally think that the codom. US Smoothies paired the EU Leathers will be the most interessting Animals, so a friend and
i would be pair a US Smoothie male HET Hypo with an EU Leather HET
Hypo female,( if they mature with eachother!) and we belive that there come out NO SILKS! I think there must come out a new Morph of Beardies, so i think alessandro and i are the same opinion!

Greetz from Bavaria

Ralf

hy,
i am sorry ralf but i don't think what you are guessing.
my question about the two lines is because i believe they are the same character discovered in two different places. the only way to know is crossing them together and see what happen.

randi, nice to ear you again. you are doing a great job. i have seen some pic and the big work pay off!!!

alessandro

Hi alessandro,

sorry but then i understand your post wrong!
But when i see our european line and the line from Randy than are
there many diffrences in the struckture of the scaling and this
is why i thing it a other morph, when you wish i could send you pics from a adult US Smoothie vs. the european line, the Eu line
is much cleaner scaled as the codom. US line.
And your right the european line cleans out the scaling in every Generation, the will be better and better, that´s awsome! but not only in a silk breeding, it´s the same effect in the Leather to normal breeding. So we will see what happens this year..)

Greetz

Ralf

Hey Guys,

Good to see you Ralf and Alessandro. Yes Ralf you are right that American Smoothies as a whole were not as Smooth as the Leatherbacks. Especially the ones I bought back in 2005 and bred last year. When I bred them last year they popped out dragons that were as smooth as the parents and some that were much smoother than the parents. In fact the one pictured on my website with the Italian Leather is the smoothest Leather or Smoothie dragon that I have. It has extremely reduced lateral spikes and does not have any tubercles on its back except for a few really small ones lining the vetebra. Its tail is also very smooth but like everything that is subjective it is all relative.

When Looking at the two very similar traits, Smoothies and Leathers, from a biological standpoint in my opinion the probability of these two traits being different alleles effecting dragons in similar ways is unlikely but not impossible. There are always exceptions (Eg. Sharp and Kahl Albino Boas.) The fact that they both produce similar super forms and they both are inherited in a Codom fashion is another piece of the puzzle. In my opinion the reduced scaled aspects are very similar when you compare Leathers and Smoothies but the Italian Leatherbacks have one more generation of "cleaning." Furthermore I cannot see any differences between the two types of Silkbacks when just considering the trait itself. Again this is just my opinion that I am sure will be proved right or wrong very soon.

This season I bred several extremely smooth Smoothies to a few different animals and when they hatch out I am sure those breedings will take the American Smoothies one step forward.

Thanks guys and I really appreciate the good conversation and insights!!

Randy

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www.AlphaDragonZ.com

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am i missing something. if you have a dragon that has all 3 (recessive/american/italian) traits how will you be able to tell what trait is what.

thanks jeff hunter

That's the million dollar question. Josh

Very interesting info allessandro! It will be interesting to see what the results will be from crossing your line to the AC line. I'm no genetics whiz, but my guess is that the combo won't produce any silks. Instead, some babies will look like your line, some like AC's, and the rest a combination of the two. Determining what is what is going to be difficult. We'll see...Thanks you guys, Josh

hy josh,
if we cross the two codom lines: there are 3 possibilities.
1. they are the same gene so there will be some silkback in the cross....in that case we are calling with names the same thing....that will be a big shame
2. they are two differnt genes when we will cross them together we will not have any silkback and the babies will be divided into the two lines...like albinos in leopard geckos
3. this is the most sought after... they are two diffent gene and they overlap each other and they will create babies showing both the characteristics

in any of these cases.....lot of work to do!!!!!
alessandro

Congrats Randy and Josh this will make some exciting new breeding projects Mike