Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anybody have any nuclear pomegranate subocs? Does this phase really exist?

hard to produce because you have to breed a magnetic snowstorm phase silver to a hyperfusia phase blonde. Ill be producing some some atomic pomegranates, but those dont have that one reddish scale to be considererd nuclear, so you probably dont want them. It sucks because I could have made twice as much off the nuclears, Damn!!!!!

Sounds like some folks were "trippin'" on some real serious acid, or "shroom" juice when they dreamed up those names..LOL!

Please tell me those names are not so!

~Doug

-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Don't eat the brown acid.
Don't eat the brown acid.

LMAO!!!
-----
Todd Hughes

and I'm going to cross them into my Aaron Mattson Super New Exclusive Silver Black Gap Wildlife Mngmt Area Morph Subocs!!, because you just can't get any rarer than that.

Mercury phase. What do you think?

>>Mercury phase. What do you think?
>>

Those are cool. Now somebody just needs to find a Black Gap Albino. For obvious reasons...

Thanks. So do you think Mercury is a good name?

Chris Flowers and I have both reproduced this morph, myself by breeding het son to original homo mother and Chris by breeding het to het, brother and sister. I have also produced several clutches of hets by breeding the original homo mother to a wild caught normal male. All results so far have been consistent with a simple recessive mode of inheritance and I feel it is safe to say that it's a simple recessive trait.

I was first thinking Black Gap Silvers but tossed that out because most people will not be able to or not want to keep them pure locality.

I also don't think it would be appropriate to give them any of the other names that are in use like Silver, Silver Color Normal Pattern, Platinum, Axanthic, etc. because mine have not been test bred against those for compatability.

The way I see it the definition of a Mercury phase would be: A simple recessive form of Axanthism originating from a single wild caught specimen originally collected at Black Gap.

I do think it is possible that mine could prove to be compatible with the generic Silvers/Axanthics, just as Gregg Feaster's turned out to be but for now that's not known. I also don't know of anybody who is planning to test breed them so it could be several years before it's known one way or the other. In the meantime, there are other people besides myself who will be producing these so they need a name to prevent confusion. Also, there's nothing wrong with me taking a credit for developing this strain right?
Any thoughts?

here's what: Send me one pair of each type and I'll do all that hard testing for you I'll even name it after you!

LOL. I don't have any of the generic Silvers or I would have done the test breeding myself. So far I have been mainly concerned with determining inheritability of this strain. I don't have alot of room so all I've got are:
0.1 wc "Mercury" adult.
1.0 cb het "Mercury" adult.
1.1 cb 2007 het "Mercury".
1.0 cb 2008 "Mercury".
0.1 cb 2008 het "Mercury".
1.0 wc normal Black Gap to be used for outcrossing later on down the line.

I've also got a clutch of 9 eggs(8 good, 1 bad) incubating.

Since first and foremost I really love locality snakes I am much more focused on establishing this line as a locality pure morph strain for my own enjoyment rather than breeding it into other morphs.

So, now they're called Mercury? Why change the name? You, Chris Flowers, Shannon Brown, Ric Blair, and others have been calling them (and even SELLING them as) Black Gap Silvers for as long as they've been proven genetic.

There is a lot of evidence that they're the same genetically as the other line of Silvers (Dave Hewitt and Mark Bell lines are the same genetically).

First, they're proven recessive just like the other line.

They originate only a few miles from where the other line originated.

And lastly, they are the same morph, visually.

Yeah, there's a slight chance that they could be different alleles causing the same mutation (axanthism), but I'd invoke the law of parsimony on this one -- that the simplest explanation is the best and most likely until proven otherwise.

Dusty

Not kidding at all. It wouldn't be a name change because I have never named them anything. They were not even proven until late last year. The names that I have used before were all descriptive terms, not morph names. I explained that at the very beginning and multiple times between then and now.

Since these were started by me, proven genetic by me and are not traceable to any other strain, tradition allows me to name them.

Consider this scenario. You have a female Silver Blonde and you want to produce Silver Color Normal Pattern babies but you don't have a male. Would you buy one of my male "Mercuries" and hope it's compatable or would you buy a male of the Silver Color Normal Patterns that are known to be compatable? Would you bank money on mine being compatible, or reccommend others bank money on it?

But the difference is that you typically give a new morph a new name that is visually different. Mark Bell and Dave Hewitt still called both of their animals Silvers, and lo and behold, they turned out to be the same genetically.

With the white color and the missing scale of the Hwy 277 Albinos and the Orange color and intact frontal scale of the River Road Albinos, the Barkers and everyone else still called them Albinos -- even though they had their suspicions that they were different genetically.

I mean, if you found a Blonde 10 miles north of their usual range, would you give it a new name other than Blonde? Of course, not. Why would nature produce the EXACT same mutation twice AND so close geographically?

Answer: Because it's most likely the same allele, and even if it wasn't the same allele, then it's the SAME mutation at a different locus.

I know I've seen several places on the web where you and all of those people I mentioned called them some version of "Black Gap Silvers" both here and on the RSF web site. How is that not assigning a name to them? Several have been sold under that name already. When I visited Ric Blair on occasion, he called his half "Hets for Black Gap Silver". Isn't Ric the co-discover, for crying out loud?

Don't think I'm being contentious, Aaron. I'm not. I really don't care what you call them, but I just don't understand why you'd do it all-of-a-sudden. IMO, having the name Mercury for the same visual morph as Silver will only create confusion in the hobby, especially when the two are most likely the same genetically, and also especially that you haven't tried test-breeding them yet.

If I were to see the name, "Mercury Subocs" advertised, I'd think "Wow, someone has created a new morph." Especially if that someone advertising them knows of the existence of Silvers.

Most of your points have already been adressed but since you asked, I will answer this one:

"When I visited Ric Blair on occasion, he called his half "Hets for Black Gap Silver". Isn't Ric the co-discover, for crying out loud?"

Yes Ric and I collected it together but he did none of the breedings. I took it home and eventually collected a normal male from the same locality and did all of the breeding. All the ones that Ric has had have came from me splitting my clutches with him. The group of hets he recently sold were produced by me. To my knowledge he has never bred any of them.

BTW you didn't answer my question, if someone had a lone female Silver Blonde and wanted to produce Silver Normals, would you reccommend they buy a male "Mercury", or a male Silver Normal?
I will admit that there is a good chance mine will prove to be the same strain of Axanthic as the Silvers but I am not going to sell them as that until it gets proven. I also am not going to ever attatch a locality name to something that will not likely be kept pure locality. The fact is right now they have met all the criteria for naming and they have met none of the criteria for synonomising them with Silvers.

>>BTW you didn't answer my question, if someone had a lone female Silver Blonde and wanted to produce Silver Normals, would you reccommend they buy a male "Mercury", or a male Silver Normal?

Yeah, I would of course have them buy a "non-Black Gap" Silver male until they proved allelic, but I would never call yours a Mercury, because to me that denotes a different mutation, which those snakes are not.

I would certainly see a reason for naming it Mercury Axanthic (or Axanthic type B) if, after you (or someone else) test breeds them, they still prove non-allelic. Just not before.

Otherwise, people will probably say one day soon, "Whatever happened to that Mercury phase Suboc?" LOL

Again, I enjoy these conversations, Aaron...I know I get excited about them, so don't think that I'm a jerk...I just like to discuss ideas. And I've been wrong probably as many times as I've been right.

Regards,

Dusty

Aaron, I think Mercury Phase is appropriate. Mike

Aaron,.....was the guy that did that "funky-chicken" video the same guy that made up those names???...this would all make perfect sense..LOL!

~Doug
-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I don't remember posting any of this.

I've had that happen before.

Yeah, ......Posting Under the Influence..LOL!!

Here is another forum member shortly after he made a bizarre post..HAHAHA!!

-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I once passed while writing a chat message on a tech site I go to, once years ago. I finally heard the end of it....oh, a year or two later? :LOL:

Apparently it can happen pretty fast, but living it down, and not hearing about it anymore is a totally different story..LOL!

~Doug
-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

That would explain why my Glenlivet is almost gone. I still think there's a chance it was the Dwarves.

Thank God we don't see ridiculous names like these in the "suboc industry". LOL