Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this sounds stupid, but think about it a bit. Are they the super form of a het pied? I mean het pieds are visually different from normals. Most of the time easily picked out of a poss het clutch. So what is to say that het pieds are co dom and the pied is the super form of that codom?

So if I presented a 100 different normals and 5 of them where het pieds, you could tell me with no problem at all which 5 where the hets?

Bill
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2.1 Tripple Het Caramel, Orange Ghost, Genetic Stripe
1.0 Honeybee
1.1 Het Lavenders
1.1 Het Caramel Albino
0.1 Het Albino
0.1 Spider Het Albino
0.1 Het Pied
1,1 Pastel Het for Orange Ghost
1.0 Albino
0.1 Spinner
1.1 Super Pastel
0.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Pied 50 percent White
0.1 Clown
0.3 Normal
1.1 Kids (9) and (16)
0.1 Spouse (22 Years Married)
1.0 Chocolate Lab

no--not saying that--but if I through 5 poor looking examples of ybs, fires, vanillas in with the same group you could pull them out without a question?

I cant beleive I spelled threw through--man--I must be tired

Are the Het Pied markers on each and every Het Pied? I have heard that they aren't. Is every Ball with a Het Pied marker a Het Pied. If 1000 lot of CH Balls came in, would every snake with a Het Pied marker be a Het Pied. Could there be some Het Pieds without the marker, in that lot?

Dave

No,

My point would be that every snake that we know is a codom with the super form we would be able to pick out all the hets with no problem at all. That would be my argument.

Bill
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2.1 Tripple Het Caramel, Orange Ghost, Genetic Stripe
1.0 Honeybee
1.1 Het Lavenders
1.1 Het Caramel Albino
0.1 Het Albino
0.1 Spider Het Albino
0.1 Het Pied
1,1 Pastel Het for Orange Ghost
1.0 Albino
0.1 Spinner
1.1 Super Pastel
0.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Pied 50 percent White
0.1 Clown
0.3 Normal
1.1 Kids (9) and (16)
0.1 Spouse (22 Years Married)
1.0 Chocolate Lab

I agree with Thunderpaws. Only a percentage of hatchlings have the "Het Pied Markers" some sites describe. There are also sometimes hatchlings that have the markers that never produce a Piebald. This could just be bad luck statistics, but it insinuates that the "markers" are not necessarily linked irrevocably with the Pied gene.

IE, Piebald is a simple recessive because the phenotype of the Het does not differ from the Wild Type.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.0 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

yes-but that is not the case-I think het pieds without markers are the exception and very uncommon. I have received in 100s of het pied males into inventory, and I cannot remember seeing one that did not have some degree of belly striping.

To argue the other side, I had a female yellowbelly that I bought as an imported adult years ago--everyone said she was not a yellowbelly----she was a wild caught adult, so it took her 2 years to establish and breed, and guess what--first breeding to a male yb, she produced an ivory.

I would say that pied is somewhere in the middle between text book recessive and text book co-dominant. The are definitely not text book recessive and as you point out yellow belly may not be text book co-dominant. Pied; recessive with co-dominant tendencies. Yellow belly; co-dominant with recessive tendencies, lol. Guess the ball pythons don’t read the text books.

now that was funny!

It depends on your definition of visual. A het pied isn't very visual.

I agree it is not very visual, but it is visual even if only a bit visual.

I guess that is true. If those belly stripes are on, say 90% of Hets, then you could call it Codom. Afterall, look at Whirlwinds, Specters, and Spotnoses. It takes a bit of scrutiny to tell them apart from one another and normals.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.0 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

my point exactly-I guess it all depends how you look at the gene itself. Just a different perspective.

Well,

I know you know your genetics and you are just opening a discussion which I love. I totally see your point, but I personally feel it is a very recessive snake. I have seen a few double recessive combos with the pied gene and there where no belly markings at all it looked like a total normal that was worth 8K...LOL. Good discussion and I find it interesting for sure.

Bill
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2.1 Tripple Het Caramel, Orange Ghost, Genetic Stripe
1.0 Honeybee
1.1 Het Lavenders
1.1 Het Caramel Albino
0.1 Het Albino
0.1 Spider Het Albino
0.1 Het Pied
1,1 Pastel Het for Orange Ghost
1.0 Albino
0.1 Spinner
1.1 Super Pastel
0.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Pied 50 percent White
0.1 Clown
0.3 Normal
1.1 Kids (9) and (16)
0.1 Spouse (22 Years Married)
1.0 Chocolate Lab

Random, but are you asking this after looking at your het sentinels for a while? I'm not sure if your het sentinels are like Chuck's paints (which I've seen in person), but someone who had only seen one of those could easily say it "wasn't visual" just like someone who only saw ONE yellow belly could easily say it "wasn't visual". At the same time, most of them you can look at and say, "WOW, that's obviously something other than a normal". Sorta builds off of what someone says further down about if a larger percentage of pieds have markers...I would agree though, if a good percentage of them have SOME sort of different markings, then I could see where you're going with the question...

not sure--never seen chucks paints. I have heard him write about them as if they do not look like much on another board, but he says they are not the same thing and his word is good enough for me. My het sentinels are obviously different, even if it as a yellowbelly would be considered different from a normal. I do agree that my adult sentinels as babies looked far different than his babies paintballs. Similar pattern, but much more intense coloration on my adults when they were babies than the pictures of his hatchlings. I always thought it was a difference in individual examples possibly just from different bloodlines, but I am sure more will be revealed as my clutches hatch this season.
I have always thought this about the het pieds for a long time. I was checking for eggs and looking at my adult het pied females, and just could not help but notice that they just looked different from a normal. Not just belly stripes, just a different appearance. Never gave it much thought.

3 66% pos het pied females WITH MARKERS laid 6-8 eggs each 2 seasons in a row. Bred only to my Pied male = TOOOOOOO MANY 100% hets and NO PIEDS!

end of that discussion!

Best regards,
Alan Cole

Was the source of those possible het pieds above question? That is, couldn't have been a shady importer picking out ch het pied lookalikes and selling as captive bred possible hets? Of course even those have been known to prove on occasion, just probably no where near what actual possible hets would.

I can easily see where you're going. But think about this. Is it not possible the pied is in fact a simple recessive and the markers are possibly a completely separate codominate gene? As with many morphs of many types of snakes, most all of the morphs originated from a single or very limited number of parents. Thus, with inbreeding and whatnot to prove them out, this would for sure pass those codom genes on.

Hey Ben,

I don't think it is a stupid question at all.
Actually I kinda feel the same way.
I would be willing to go as far as including some lines of Ghosts or Albinos in the same category.

Several years ago a friend of mine had a bunch of baby het. Ghosts/Hypos in his collection. While this friend was out of town, his son was caring for his collection. His son accidentally mixed the baby Het. Ghosts in with the normals. When my friend returned, he called me and I came over to look through the babies with him.

We selected what we thought appeared to "resemble" het. Ghosts.
My friend kept all the babies...because he could not sell them as true hets. with any real certainty.

He has since proven 7 out of 10 of those snakes to indeed be true hets. (The other three have not yet bred for him.)
Not too bad for just eyeballing it! Often Het. Ghosts just have that look to them. Perhaps it was just luck??? I think there is more to it than merely luck. Not saying I could do it every time....but it brings up and interesting point.

I often wonder if there are other "recessive" traits that have pheno-typical het. markers that we are just not keen enough to pick up on yet. I am also familiar with the Albino strain that produces the hatchling hets. which appear to be Axanthic.
(the appearance soon fades) But, it is a great indicator of those snakes that carry the gene....so essentially they are just like "co-doms".

Has anyone else noticed any pheno-typical het. markers in any particular recessive traits? Please share your thoughts.

Perhaps "Co-Dom" or "Recessive" depends on how you really want to categorize these critters. The pattern of inheritance is really the same when you come right down to it. Perhaps some are just easier to notice....so we label them as co-doms.
Just a thought.

Great topic by the way, Ben!
Take care,

Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES!
970-255-9255
970-245-7611

Just An after thought....then I am through or threw...however you prefer to spell it Ben....lol.

Perhaps we need to be looking for more markers than just belly stripes in the het. Pieds?

With things like Yellow Bellies, Specters, Cinnys and Fires etc. we look for more than one Characteristic Marker.
For Example we look at several markers in some of these Co-Doms.
Head Spots
Blushing
Flames
Specific Belly Patterning
Eye Color
Halos
Floating Patterns
Misshapen or large singular "eyes spots" in the "alien heads"
Silhouette in the pattern
Color anomalies...
The list of pattern markers could go on and on.

Maybe we need to be looking for something more than just Belly Stripes in the possible het pieds or other recessive traits?

I can recall when it was difficult to see what others saw in certain visual het morphs. Back before the Yellow Bellies were proven to have a super form. Before Phantoms or even Mojaves were proven to have a super.
Now it is easy for most of us to see. We even kind of joke at the classic, "Is this a Yellow Belly???" posts.
But we have trained our minds to pick up on subtle variations in pattern, color etc. Perhaps there are other more subtle markers in some of these "recessive" traits that some of us will be able to pick out and then KNOW exactly who the gene carriers are?
(And perhaps not?)

If 10 years ago someone gave any of us a tub of 300 baby balls and said which ones are het. for Ivory....aka yellow bellies.
I bet most of us would have done fairly poor at making the pick.
But I would be willing to bet that it would be MUCH easier for almost any of you now.
Because now we know what to look for. Perhaps it would not be 100%. We might miss a few. But that would not disprove that yellow bellies are co-dominant.

Jared Horenstein took a little ribbing for messing with those yellow bellies back then. Sure some saw the light. But more than a few people likely thought he was nuts and just wasting his time...until they saw the Ivories!!!

It could all just depend on your perspective....
Or it could depend on how adept you are at identifying specific characteristics. Either way What a fun topic!

Take care.
Harlin

I agree with everything you wrote---except I would have to give that yellow belly dinkering credit to Amir---he was pulling them before anyone and actually proved them codom long before an ivory was produced--I remember when he first made them he tried getting $250 for them and no one wanted them, so he kept them all--season or two later, he proved his line with ivories and ended up raised the price from $250 to $10,000/pair and could not keep up with the demand--ahh--those were the days!

Yeah...and Jared and Amir know each other...so you might be right.
I have heard it both ways in regard to who was first with the yellow bellies. So it may have actually been Amir. I honestly don't know. I am sure both of them caught flack for their faith in the YB project (pre-ivory).
It's neat to look back and see how far this hobby has come.

I remember visiting an importers place years ago and being offered some pied ball pythons, before they were proven to be genetic.
At the time, they seemed kind of expensive....especially for something that might actually turn out to just be an interesting fluke of nature.
Man...I wish I had grabbed them back then! Now I look back and realize how inexpensively they were originally offered to me.
What do they say about hind sight??? lol.
Take care,
Harlin

so true!
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I have also noticed that with het ghosts as well. They look different.

Same thing going on with leopard boas.....hets are visually different and unusual, is the leopard a super form?

I have always considered yellow bellies/ivories and het pied/pied as incomplete dominant. Because any time a recessive tried has a "visaul" het its not recessive. whats your opinion?

On the whole "co-dominant" vs. "incomplete dominant" debate I'm lost. I never understood the argument about white, red, and pink flowers. It seems to me if you look close enough the pink might be white and red polka dot, just really really small.

Maybe a similar argument holds up for many recessive mutations. Maybe a lot of them are just subtle and not 100% consistent co-dominants. I don't know what the right term is for any of them.

I did produce a clutch of 50% chance het hypos years ago. Exactly half where noticeably more ghost like. Unfortunately only one of the light ones was a female but she did prove.

I've got a possible double het albino stripe male with a really light faded head from RDR. He actually already proved het albino. But he keeps throwing these faded head babies. Not sure what is up with that. Maybe nothing related to stripe since I don't even know if he has that gene but stripe is another one I'd love to hear thoughts on possible markers.