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I saw below that John Cherry posted a response to a weeks old thread about melanistic thayeri. If you haven't read the thread about melanistics from 2+ years ago on this forum, I'll put a link below.

In that old thread it was theorized that there were or are two different lines of melanistic thayeri in existence. One line that is fairly unpredictable (What John Cherry has) and one line that seems to following a simple recessive pattern (like some of the early w/c thayeri were reported to do).

The animals that followed the simple recessive trait were thought to no longer exist. At the bottom of that thread, Burnsy (Gerritt) mentions that there is a German line that is simple recessive and Shannon indicates that he is awaiting delivery of some of those from Gerritt. Putting two and two together, I assume that these are the animals John L. has posted here. I'm really interested in seeing the results from that breeding project to see if they do follow a simple recessive pattern.

I would like to here some from Shannon, Burnsy, John L. about how that line was traced to Lemke. I'm not doubting anything, I like many of you, like to collect info on lines.

I would also like to know any history on any of the other existing melanistic lines. John Cherry talked a bit about his stock on the old thread.

For my part, I picked up a pair of '08 melanistic thayeri from Larry Briggs (Rock Canyon Ranch) when he offered a few pairs for sale. I quizzed Larry a bit about the background of his stock and got few specifics from that conversation. He said he had a very old male melanistic and had bred it to a female melanistic and a female buckskin leonis. He also said that his melanistic X melanistic pairing produced all melanistics. I never learned where his stock came from. I consider them "unknown" or generics.

Can anyone else share any knowledge on theirs? Lance where are yours from?

Greg
Old melanistic thayeri thread

First thing......You are correct Greg...I do have 2.1 of Shannon's Melanistics here on breeding loan along with a female leonis thayeri produced by Dan Vermilya......We are going to use the female to produce some melanistic hets.....

Secondly....The 2.1 Melanistics are from Gerritt in Germany and are known to have produced all Melanistic offspring just as a simple recessive gene would work.....According to the background work that Burnsy (Gerritt) did on them they can be traced back to Lloyd Lemke...and as a matter of fact lots of melanistic thayeri can be traced back to Lloyd, but not all.....I emailed Shannon to elaborate on the lineage and am awaiting his reply......I am going to advertise them as Lemke line melanistics due to the fact that I do not own them and believe what Shannon & Gerritt have told me......

Also.....I have been diligently searching for an older thread (late 2008 or early 2009) concerning melanistic thayeri and Chris Harper's explanation of how some lines breed simple Mendelian recessive and some do not.......and how the trait is somehow polymorphic.....
I would really like to find that thread, but cannot....I believe Joe Forks posted in that thread many times as well....Maybe Chris or Joe will chime in here.....

I think Lance's Melanistics are from Larry Briggs as well Greg.....But I am not 100% sure....Again maybe he will add the correct info here.....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Can anyone else share any knowledge on theirs? Lance where are yours from?

Greg

I have that old male, buckshin female and black female from Larry.. and they bred true to the simple recessive for me last year.

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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

Guys the only thing I can add is that the Lemke line animals, even the black ones do not produce blacks all the time. I have some f1 and f2 lemke animals that are getting really old now days, that I purchased directly from Lloyd and they do not produce blacks on a regular basis.

They show the diversity of the original lines of Thayeri that we all saw in wild caught animals back in the late 70's and early 80's, without a lot of really any of the exceptional bright colors we see now days. I am rasing up some f2 and f3 aniamls in order to keep his lines going as I think it is important.

The predominate colors seem to be milk phases mixed in with a lot of leonis phase animals that have the darker buckskin, orange and yellows from yesteryear.

I personally like those type colors and also am really turned on by some of the milk phases that end up having extremely clean white, and/or yellow banding from lemkes and laredo line animals alike on a pretty regular basis.

Sure wish Lloyds colony was still intact and he was around to give us specific locales on his animals as I think that might give us some real indications of the genetics we are all working with.

Cherryville Farms

John,

I'm a fan of the old school ground colors myself and have dedicated most my recent breeding efforts towards that goal.

Its interesting that we seem to have this Lemke line that you're working with that does not follow predictable patterns, and then this German line attributed to Lemke that seems to follow simple recessive rules. Historically there seems to be evidence of both types of melanistics going back to the wild collecting days.

It is surprising that some of the older lines that are still available no longer produce melanistics (if they ever did), possibly as the result of selectively breeding for other traits.

Does Robert Applegate still produce any melanistics?

Does anybody still have any of the melanistic stock Frank Retes collected? Joe mentioned he was working with them 25 years ago.

Aaron Mattson, in that old thread, says that he was raising up some melanistics that could possibly be traced to Garstka stock. Maybe Aaron will chime in about that.

Meanwhile, I would love to know what Lance knows about that trio from Larry Briggs. Those are the parents of my '08 pair.

Greg

>>Sure wish Lloyds colony was still intact and he was around to give us specific locales on his animals as I think that might give us some real indications of the genetics we are all working with.

You hit the nail on the proverbial head there John......

I guess we will see next year what the 2.1 Lemke Melanistics produce....
I am thinking they will all be black offspring, but we'll see then.....
We are even going to try and make 'hets'....I guess we'll have to hold back a pair of those to see if 'this' line is simple recessive.....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

If you look back into old breeding records blacks were produced at about the same rates as the yellows and oranges were.

They were hard to find to say the least. I know from when Lloyd was alive, he did not have a specific group of animals that produced even a high incidence of black animals. They were at best random.

A few people liked them, but most folks liked the leonis phases of the different color morphs. So they line and color bred for those. Over the years the incidence of the blacks slowly, but predictably was seen less and less.

But with that said, the black gene morph is still there in many animals but again we tend as hobbyist not to breed for it. Pairing yellow to yellow, orange to yellow, less and less MSP etc.

While it could definitely happen that a pure black to black line producing black only, it would sure be a long shot.

After all there is a reason that these animals are called Variable Kings. In none of the other color morphs of thayeri are we able to control the production of specific color or pattern morphs.

At least that is my experience in Thayeri, I bet you get something other than all blacks out of your pairings. Which is not a bad thing from where I come from. It will simply be in keeping with as what the name Variable King implies!

Cherryville Farms

I agree....If they don't produce all melanistics it won't be a bad thing.....I like variability that is why I have kept Mexicana as long as I have, especially the Nuevo Leon (Variable) King....

I think it would nice to see MSPs, Leonis and Black neonate siblings in one clutch.......

Like I said previously....We shall see.....
Thanks for your input John......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

John,

I respect your knowledge of early lines and breeders and your experience working with black thayeri. I don't know of any current breeder who has been working with melanistic thayeri for as long as you have. That being said, you have to acknowledge that other breeders have had different experiences than you. These include breeders that were working with wild caught stock, so line breeding cannot be the explanation.

I personally think there may be a more complex explanation for why we see two different patterns in the way the trait is expressed. Craig posted a plausible explanation in the old thread for the two types.

Greg

Is anyone breeding Melanistic to Melanistic Thayeri this season?
I hope some one else is.....

Lance, aren't you?
Mr. Cherry, aren't you?
Joe, are you?

I would certainly like to compare notes from Shannon's reverse trio when and if we get eggs to hatch from them.......
And...I think the Dan Vermilya female we are going to pair up with the black male(s)will be the best chance of producing a Melanistic offspring from a Melanistic X Normal Leonis pairing.....As some Melanistics have been known to come from Dan's thayeri.......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

John,
For the record only 1.1 of the reverse trio came from over the pond.The other male I got from Aaron and he got it from John Hollister and John said it was a Lemke line.Also one of the pair that came from Gerrit was shipped to him a couple years ago from Steve Hamick and it was also a Lemke.So, 2 of the three are for sure Lemke and when Gerrit bought the other one at a show over there he was told it was Lemke line.

L8r

>>John,
>>For the record only 1.1 of the reverse trio came from over the pond.The other male I got from Aaron and he got it from John Hollister and John said it was a Lemke line.Also one of the pair that came from Gerrit was shipped to him a couple years ago from Steve Hamick and it was also a Lemke.So, 2 of the three are for sure Lemke and when Gerrit bought the other one at a show over there he was told it was Lemke line.
>>
>>L8r

Great info Shannon......I knew 1.1 came from Gerritt and 1.0 came from Aaron.....I did not know John Hollister sold it to Gerritt but I know John is a reputable guy and if he says it is from Lemke it is......No doubt about it....
Also.......I would believe Steve Hammack as well......Unless I was buying a Smithi from him....LOL
And....Like I said....We will see how it goes.....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

yes we will be breeding three black females to black males this year.

Also, one of the reasons I enjoy this hobby or obbsession like I do is that many old laws/rules of yesteryear are proved to be wrong on a pretty regular basis.

So to answer your question or assumption, yes others having different experiences with certain aniamsl is highly possible. But with that said we can only deal wth what we have personally experienced and/or learned over years of trial and error.
As the basis for our opinions and usually those experiences are fairly accurate when it comes to predicting what we can expect from our animals.

Hammack by the way had some of the nicest Thayeri around back in his day of breeding them. There was a friend of his named Tracy that had some blacks from Steves line also.
Cherryville Farms

John, re-read my post man.John never sold anything to Gerrit.This is what I said,

">>For the record only 1.1 of the reverse trio came from over the pond.The other male I got from Aaron and he got it from John Hollister and John said it was a Lemke line"

John Hollister sold it to Aaron,not Gerrit.

L8r

>>John, re-read my post man.John never sold anything to Gerrit.This is what I said,
>>
>>">>For the record only 1.1 of the reverse trio came from over the pond.The other male I got from Aaron and he got it from John Hollister and John said it was a Lemke line"
>>
>>
>>John Hollister sold it to Aaron,not Gerrit.

OK......Got it man.......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

I plan to put them in the same cage together, the breeding is up to them.. last year my black to black pairing produced 100% black offspring.
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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

Lance, put me on the bottom of that giant list, hopefully I'll hear from you in 2525, lol!
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Todd Hughes