Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know of a way to get a dna test done on a snake. I can't find anything online. I mated a 100% het pied male to a normal female, and I want to know which ones have the pied gene and which ones do not. Do the babies that look like the het male carry the gene, and the ones that look more like the female do not, or does that have nothing to do with it?

Here is the female ovulating

Female 2

Female 3

Here is the 100% het male

Here is a belly shot if the male. Does anyone see any pied markers? I don't know what they even look like, and how reliable are the pied markers anyways???
Thanks,
Matt

There isn't a test for that. The gene would have to be located in the genome of a ball python, make a "primer" for it, do polymerase chain reaction on a sample of the snake in question, then run a gel. There are a few other ways, like microarray, etc too. This type of data/process is not done on balls. I haven't even been able to find the number of chromosomes that a ball has, let alone a test for color/pattern mutation gene presence. Even if it had been done, it would likely be rediculously expensive. These types of tests are available for human disorders, like cystic fibrosis and some others. The only information I have found on any molecular experiments on balls is some info from their mitochondia.

To determine if your offspring have the gene, you'd have to breed it to a ball that you know carries the gene.

Sorry
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Cheers,
Jessica
10.15 Ball Pythons; 8.9 Corn Snakes; 0.0.1 Green Tree Python
2.2 Jungle Carpet Pythons
6.6.1 Bci
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

There are DNA tests that will work the only problem is it cannot be used on babies for males they should be 500-750 grams (1-2 years) and the female needs to be about 1200-1500 grams (2-3 years). The DNA test is called breeding, now you have a few options.

You can breed your offspring to a 100% het and if you have any pied babies you will know that both parents are 100% het pied. (please note if both parents are hets then 25% of offspring would be likely pieds; however if all offspring are normal looking then most likely 1 if not both are not pied gene carriers). You may want to run this test a few times to prove results... Got a love statics they don't fall the same every time. (this test should only be done once a year)

Another option is that you can breed your offspring to a pied. If the offspring is a het pied there is a 50% possibility of visible offspring. This usually proves out the first year but always keep in mind statics can fall both ways so a few test may be needed to prove results!!!

I know I know, the question at hand is what do we call them now, well, they are 50% possible hets for pied (that is what they are called). Some are normals and some are het for pied but there is no way to tell for sure who is who and statically speaking half should be hets and half should be normals but the odds again can fall either way so the only way to tell for sure is breed them to pied gene carrier.

I am sorry if I sound like a jerk but I had a bad night and this response has been my humor for the evening, please do not take it personal.

matt

Here's what I am doing: I bred a het pied male to a normal female. I looked for the two females in the clutch with the best markers and saved them. (The rest of the clutch were sold as normals since I'd stacked the odds against their being even 50% poss hets.) Since then, I've purchased a pied male who will breed those two holdbacks once they're up to size.

Check out the site on Next World Exotics for a great write up on het pied markers. Markers should be viewed as an indicator, a way of improving your odds, rather than an absolute sign. This is the address
http://www.nextworldexotics.com/hghpm.htm

Good luck!
Maki
www.pacificcoastreptiles.com

I read it, and I kind of understand it, but the male in my pic doesn't show anything along the lines of markers, but I got him 2 years ago from constrictors unlimited as a 100% het for pied. Do people in this industry lie about things like that thinking that it will take to long to prove it wrong and they can just say that your unlucky with the odds??? That would be horrible....darn right depressing given all the work that goes into proving out a het.

Yes there are dealers out there that sell normals for hets however their business will go down with their lies. I personally would only buy hets from a well known breeder or close breeder friends. Ask tons of questions if the deal sounds to good to be true leave it at the table.

The breeders that thrive (big or small) are the breeders that are honest, knowledgeable, and stand behind their animals.

matt

Just because your snake doesn't have pied markers doesn't mean that you don't have a het pied. There are as many (if not more) het pieds without the marker then there are with -- there are normals with the marker -- it's not anything you should base your genetics on. If you want to know which of the offspring carry the pied gene you'll have to breed them out. Good luck.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

I'm doing the same except I started each of several lines with only 50% het chance pied males or in one case a 25% chance het pied male.

I think this 08 female holdback has an excellent chance of being het pied even though it's only 12.5% on paper. She is from a line where this belly has been picked out through at least three consecutive generations of outbreeding (I'd have to check some old e-mails to see if I was ever told if her 100% het great grandfather had it or not).

I'd be very interested to hear confirmation of non markered hets throwing well markered hets. I would expect that to happen just like non wobbling spiders and non kinking caramels can throw wobbling or kinked offspring. It seems that some of these mutant genes have tendencies that don't always show but seem to be part of the mutation so can always come up later. With pied it seems that although considered a recessive mutation it has co-dominant tendencies. I’ve heard differing reports on what percentage of het pieds show it from 60 – 80%.

If the gene responsible for the pattern mutation was known it would be straight forward and relatively inexpensive. Unfortunately, the problem is that it is not known. However, if and when genes responsible for mutations with similar expression occur in mice, it may be possible that these are homologes of the same gene in reptiles. Therefore with a little work, it may be possible to amplify these in the snake species and therefore identify the alleles present. This, I doubt will happen any time soon.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

There appears to be so little known about BP genetics outside of morphs. Does anyone know of research being done to karyotype or sequence the genome of these snakes?
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1.0 normal ball python
0.1 greyband hybrid kingsnake
0.2 crazy cats
1.0 husband

To my knowledge nothing is being done right now. I have generated a microsatellite library for these. This allows me to develop "nuetral" co-dominant markers that allows parentage to be assigned when multiple males are used in a litter. I also allows us to genetically fingerprint the animals (great for any cases were animals are stolen, and later found), and can be used for studies of wild populations in terms of structure, breeding success, calculations of effective population sizes, etc.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

IMO, keep all of the females and breed them back to the het male.

I have been planning on that for about a year now..lol, but it still would be nice to know, you know?

Unfortunately there is no quick easy way to know if any offspring are carrying a recessive gene, at least not for pieds. The so called 'het pied' marker is at best, a 50% chance it is indeed a het pied...Every time the question comes up about the het pied, pretty much hear the same thing..plenty of people have normal snakes with the marker which even bred with visual pieds, never produce pieds after several clutches. And many have known 100% pieds that don't have the marker and some do.

You can breed a visual pied to a normal snake and in the offspring which are all 100% het pieds, some may have the 'marker' and some won't. None may have the marker as well. So I really don't see it being a reliable indicator. Maybe if you have a bunch of captive hatched ball pythons, you can sort of improve your odds in buying a het pied cheap, if you look for markers...but personally I think trusting the breeder you bought the 100% het for Pied snake is your best way to ensure you do have a 100% het animal.

Even if there was a DNA test you could have done to see if the offspring carry the pied trait, it would be cheaper to buy a visual pied to breed your het to. Unless you find a university student looking for a project for his thesis on.
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PHLdyPayne