Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is anyone aware of any genome mapping done w/ kingsnakes? How many chromosomes do they have? Documented recessive/dominant characters? I've done some web searches, but haven't found much. Hereditary diseases? If you could direct me to any links I'd appreciate it. I'm going to do some academic paper searches at my library next. Just curious about it, I'm taking bio1 and it's all pretty interesting.

Ah, not sure you know this but it takes gobs of cash to run the machines that do the mapping. There arent that many people interested in this, and there are fewer people paying the $$ to do it. You can look up individual ssp. to figure out what recessive genes are around...pretty much 90% of everything possible.

>>Ah, not sure you know this but it takes gobs of cash to run the machines that do the mapping. There arent that many people interested in this, and there are fewer people paying the $$ to do it. You can look up individual ssp. to figure out what recessive genes are around...pretty much 90% of everything possible.

I'd just be curious to see a karayotype of a kingsnake. Karayotyping is routinely performed on humans when testing for genetic disorders. The procedure involves forcing some somatic cells to undergo mitosis and then examining the individual chromosomes. The cool thing is all it takes are some cells, a specific organic compound to force the cells to undergo mitosis, and a microscope with a video output, preferably to a computer. Haha, if it's never been done before for kingsnakes I'm definitely going to try it. I graduated from USF w/ computer science in 2k8, and I'm returning for pre-med; this would be a great independent research project. I can understand how this would never be done, it's completely not needed for breeding purposes. Mother nature usually takes care of genetic anomalies itself, serious ones at least.