Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With the advent of dna "know your breed" of dog now available at the retail level, I wonder just how long it could be, if there was enough interest of course, before we could use these type things on our herps...
hmmm...
I mean, I realize there's a hundred years of dog data available already and much much more interest, but would YOU ever use something like this if it WAS availble for ..say...$69.99????
Would there really be any use in the hobby to you??
Any thoughts??

:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

I'd use it and I think if it was reasonably priced many breeders would be in a sense forced into using it too,
Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

To finally lay to rest arguments over the supposed purity of a lot of morphs, like the albino goini, lavender FL kings, Whiteside brooks, etc... Breeders could be certified from an outside source saying their stuff is pure, I guess.

Still, when a morph is priced low enough, I don't know how many hobbyists really care if it is 3% holbrooki and 97% Floridana. If I were going to pay a lot for some morph, I'd want it to be something legit rather than simple cross I could cheaply do myself.

I agree with you and I actually look forward to this someday in the future...however I do not think the dollar value on many morphs would decline based on purity. Being one who tries hard to produce morphs and feeling pretty succesful at what I am trying to achieve I can tell you I price everything on looks.
A good example may be Extreme Lavender Brooksi. I saw quite a few people producing them where average looking ones were priced less than half of what the best ones were.
Remember the saying pick of the litter? I do not hear this very often anymore. In the 80s I recall visiting with a breeder who had a photo album filled with pics of his and his friends breeders. Notes would accompany the pics with prices and picks of the litter were priced higher, and those were not morphs...just normals.
I do agree that anyone caught blatantly lying trying to pass off a hybrid as pure at a high pricetag will probably end up ruining the popularity of that snake... I mean if it was a phenomenally colored hybrid with a unique look I'd say some people would be OK with paying a lot of money for it, however it gets slammed with the label FAKE those who buy them may take a lot of mockery from others with the "you paid all that money for that?!?!" kind of stuff hehe...
I guess I am trying to say most expensive morphs have eye catching appeal and are priced by looks. If this type of testing does come into play I would not be surprised if pure morphs commanded higher prices than we have ever seen in the past.
But really, how many people would dump their collections if the snakes they are currently happy with now ended up being hybrids???
Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

Has taught me.

Hi Tom, I will disagree with you here, to a point, not totally.

As you know, I have been at this stuff(kingsnakes) since before most of you folks were born. So I have seen things and have a different perspective.

You stated your concern is with people intentionally offering hybrids as pure(to misrepresent). Over the years that has not been much of a problem. What has been a problem is folks like you(not you personally, but like you, well meaning) You purchase something and its called a pure this or that. But it does not have any color or pattern to express that( a morph) So you breed it and pass it along as pure(non-hybrid) and on and on. The problem is, are you sure its a non hybrid morph????? was the person who sold it to you sure?? etc etc etc. In many cases cross breeding is the genesis of a morph.

Its a bigger problem when hybrids are passed along naively, that is, not knowing. This is what ruins(mucks up) the trade.

The truth is, after a captive line leaves nature. Its normally twisted and turned into something else(morphs) Once they are a morph, it does not matter if its a hybrid or not. All that matters is it becomes a strain. A strain is one that produces like offspring. That is, offspring that are like the parents.

As you know, in my opinion, a "Pure" must be something that not only is genetically pure, but also appears pure. Again, that is, it looks like its wild ancestors. A captive snake that does not represent its wild ancestors, cannot be called pure. I mean, how can a striped whitesided, het of amel, het for chocolate, possible het for anery, be called pure??????? Pure the heck WHAT????????? All it can be called is pure goofy, hahahahahahaha, remember, I like morphs, but to call them pure is silly.

Again, a pure fla king whos offspring do not look anything like fla kings, cannot be pure. Not in the context of its wild ancestors or genetic origin.

I know, I am just an old kingsnake guy, possibly living in the past. But dude, how can you folks get all up in the air over hybrids and love morphs that are farther from nature then the hybrids????? Remember, this is just some questions from an old guy. Cheers

that Ivory soap is only 99.44% pure! I'll never buy Procter & Gamble products again.
-----
Darwin Rocks!

Nah, I do not get riled up over this anymore unless someone is attacking my snakes claiming something is not what I believe it is....and that does not happen very often.
I know what you are saying Frank, however there are some snakes that are supposedly pure and even locale specific morphs. Example ...Miami County Axanthic Bulls.
Hypo Brooksi were supposedly originated from real locale specific Brooksi. The thing is you're right in that aspect....many took those nice locale specific Hypos and bred them to any old Florida King to make hets....and then as myself and some freinds would say those snakes are watered down versions of the originals and just not the same.
Thayeri is a good example of the point I was making. I think a pure Albino Thayeri would be very high dollar, now remember those Thayeri Hybrids are not cheap. If you bought the Hybrid and paid the pure price knowing for fact there were both in existence I think that would leave someone feeling very ripped off.
I think pure, wild types will make a big comeback soon, and then shortly after many of those snakes offspring will bred into morphs and we'll start all over again. As long as I have snakes...I am happy...
ttyl
Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

Morphs and hybrids are 2 sides of the same artificial coin. You simply cant choose to like one and not the other. Both are attempts at basically inventing a new species...why? Because everything has been done, in this country anyways. I dont believe we will ever have a shortage of "normal" looking animals simply because we NEED them to make hets. And "ugly" hybrids are going to be chosen against simply because breeders have lots of reasonably priced choices.
About 10 years ago I had a conversation with Kevin at NERD about trying to invent tests that would "prove" possible hets early. The $$ was there, the technology wasnt. Since then some morphs have been found to produce markers in hets, and if possible this is the type of test people WOULD pay for, because the price difference between a het and non-het is ALOT more than the $69 price tag. To take it one step further, if you ask most keepers about the animals they would like to keep it would be a resounding "what I used to have". Animals die, sometimes without replacing themselves in the hobby. As cloning research comes along I can see us raising the dead from our freezers to fresh eggs...hope I live to see it!

Not prove anything.

Again, from what I am told, you must have the Founders to set the DNA standard/benchmark/markers. Then you can ID successive generations that match the original founders. If you do not have that, then Dna will not tell you anything.

You see, Again as it was explained to me, that each population of one species, can and does have lots of varibility, So to set a guideline, they must have a founder(in captivity) In nature you just pick markers from a type(one of the dang types) specimen.

If you picked markers from a type specimen, then most all captives, would not match, as they are all crosses out of population or from different populations, yet still be pure for a species.

This was explained to me when we inquired about having DNA work done of some wild hybrids(possible hybrids)

You see in nature, first generation hybrids are easy to tell just by looking, but after that, multipile generation hybrids are very very difficult to tell by color, scalation, and pattern. You must understand, that any accidental hybrid would quickly be absorbed back into the population. Yet, they are still hybrids even after many generations. We inquired to see if DNA would work here, as I said, it would only if we had the founders. Which of course we do not.

Theres an articule in Western Naturalists, on a wild caught rattlesnake cross, atrox/canebrake, They used scale structure to prove it was a hybrid. Dna would not work. Yes, this was a surprise to me, as it is to you. Cheers

"If I were going to pay a lot for some morph, I'd want it to be something legit rather than simple cross I could cheaply do myself."

I think this hits at the heart of the whole thing. True there are some locality guys who are into collecting their own animals who are into purity for purities sake however it's my humble opinion that the discussion over purity is largely about rarity and the resulting perceived increase in value and ability to make a return on investment.

In the end there isn't enough market for the service to ever bring the price down in the first place. At least not anytime soon.
-----
Darwin Rocks!

Ahhh yes! DNA testing for reptiles!

I think it would be a GREAT idea.

Beyond what has been mentioned already it should also provide information on "hidden" traits

- you could know what your "poss. hets" are truly het for or if they are just normals

- there may be undiscovered mutations floating around that you can finally bring to light.

- Certain current mutations may be combinations of different factors/genes and there may be a possibility to isolate them in hopes of better understanding how they work.

While i don't expect any of this to be a reality in the VERY NEAR future i do see it coming to pass eventually. lets just hope by then the market for reptiles is soo vast that genetic testing wouldn't cost you $70/per animal

~ZF