Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is about to get a little long-winded. For those of you who just can't wait, feel free to scroll down. You can come back and read this later.

Right away, I want to acknowledge some of the really cool things that have happened with BRBs this year. We've seen some big accomplishments. Jeff's Peruvian clutches look outstanding. I can't believe these snakes are still as uncommon as they are. Dave has put another piece of the anery puzzle in place by becoming the first one (I think) to cross two anerys to produce an all-anery clutch. Among all of your other achievements this year, this one stands out the most in my mind. It's evident that BRB morphs are catching on with all of the progress being made with striped and pearl animals especially. All of these things bring attention to our species (BRBs, not Hs). This is clearly evidenced by the number of people experiencing first-time breeding success this year with Epicrates. Congratulations! This is a wonderful species to work with.

So... even though I haven't made too many comments on the forum as of late, I have been reading along and sharing all of your joys, and some of your sorrows (Dave B, my fingers are still crossed for you).

On August 30, another milestone in BRB history was set. As many of you know, Robert Seib and I started a project back in 2005. We crossed an anery female of his to a hypo male of mine. We got a clutch of 12. 4.8 - who could ask for better sex ratios? In 2006, we crossed a second female anery (sib to the first) with a second male hypo (sib to the first) and got a second clutch. This time, there were 13 animals (4.9).

We have been referring to these 25 animals as "double-hets". Honestly, we suspected that this terminology wasn't 100% accurate because two of the females from the 2006 clutch are anery. This took us completely by surprise and suggested that our anery gene may not operate as a simple recessive allele.

Nevertheless, I intended to raise my 12 animals up and proceed with pairings when they were ready.

During the 2009 breeding season, I noticed follicles beginning to develop in one of the 2005 females. I decided not to breed her that season because I wanted to put more size on her and wait until a couple other females were ready to go. I knew if I were going to produce the ghost, I would only have a 1 in 16 chance and wanted to optimize my results. During the 2010 season, I cooled 3 2005 females and 2 of my 2006 males. Copulations took place throughout the winter of and early spring of 2010 and all three females promptly went off feed and began to swell.

I estimated the three females would drop in July of 2010 and for whatever reason, I was waaaay off.

The first clutch was born on August 18 (my birthday). There are 10 animals in the clutch. Three hypos, and 7 visually normal animals. A third clutch was dropped on September 9. There are 16 live animals. 6 hypos and 10 visually normal snakes. These two clutches are interesting to me for two reasons. 1) No anerys or ghosts were produced even though I expected anerys in the same proportion as hypos 2) Hypos showed up in both of these clutches in expected numbers. Interestingly enough, both of these clutches were sired by the same male.

The second clutch was pretty cool. This one was dropped on August 30. The mother of this clutch is a 2005 "double het" female. She is a sib to both of the other females who produced this year. The sire is a 2006 "double-het" male. He is the brother of the sire to the other clutch. In this clutch there were 11 live babies. 7 visual normals, 1 hypo, 1 beautiful anery and two ghosts. Although one is a little more ghostly than the other, they look exactly as you would expect them to. I'd like to note that both of the ghosts and the anery are all female. I don't know why, but I feel like this is significant.

I would love to talk with you over the next few weeks and months to try and figure out how this gene operates. There are people here with a much more detailed knowledge of genetics that myself and your thoughts would be very interesting to me. In the meantime, I'm very proud to present "Angel", the first BRB ghost, along with some of her siblings.

Angel

Angel with her hypo sister

Angel with her anery sister

How's this for rainbow soup? All from the same clutch.

Many of you don't know this but back in 1995 I purchased what I suspected was an anerythristic BRB from Lloyd Lemke. My intention was to cross it with the hypo gene. Due to my own poor husbandry, the snake died and I never got the chance. I've been waiting 15 long years to see this animal. And she loooooks gooooood!!!!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

ummmmm, ohhhhhh, geeezzzzz, aargggghhhh
dont know what to say

congrats is all i can think of right now. An outstanding effort....

ill have to come back with something better later on........

cheers
-----
Dave

15.24 brbs
4.8 crbs
Im an aussie in an arctic environment
Helsinki, Finland

Thanks Dave, we'll definitely talk!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Hi Mike,

Congratulations on the ghost! It's unbelievable!

As far as your other comments... aside from the fact that you produced two aneries out of the initial anery x hypo litter, I'm a little unsure why the other breeding results lead you to think it's not a simple recessive?

Genetic probabilities operate on very large population samples (i.e. in the order of hundreds of thousands to millions). When you have a small sample population, such as 2-3 or even 10 litters, it's not unusual to have what seem like off-the chart results. Just like sex-ratios in each litter. The probability of a male versus the probability of a female are 1-1, but i'm sure you've seen this often isn't the case....

Maybe i'm not seeing another issue here? But i think that the fact that you're not seeing the expected numbers is not so unexpected at all?

Of course, the fact that two visual aneries were produced in the initial pairing are puzzling and needs further investigation...

Ralph

Ralph, you're one of the people I'm really interested in hearing from. i get the sense you have some genetics in your background.

I fully understand and appreciate that probabilities are only just that and that every time a baby is produced, the dice are rolled.

But, don't you think it's a little puzzling that #1) 2 anery females were born to the hypo/anery cross and 2) there were 5 double het pairings this year. Out of 5 successful clutches and something like 60 babies, only one female was anery.

I get that this is possible. But how likely is it?

I'm first in line hoping it's recessive. Believe me, it would make life a lot easier. But if it's not, can you think of any other explanations?
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Hi Mike,

I don't think the lack of aneries/ghosts is that shocking...I've seen this so many times both in the lab and in my own personal experience in breeding fish/parrots (and to a limited extent reptiles).

What is surprising is the two aneries produced in the initial pairing. One possible explanation I can think of for this would be gynogenesis (otherwise known as pseudogamy) in which the sperm from the male's only role would be in stimulating the egg to develop into an embryo, but does not pass on any genetic material to the embryo. The only problem with this theory however, is that the two aneries you produced were females. If gynogenesis was responsible for these two anomalies, you would expect them to be males. (The egg either possessing a Z or a W sex chromosome). The egg(s) containing the Z chromosome of course, would develop into a failed embryo. The egg(s) containing the W chromosome however, would develop into a viable embryo, however, it would be WW, and hence a male. And in the same vain, any form of parthenogenesis would run into the same problem... you would expect any offspring produced from parthenogenesis to be males.

And again the fact that you saw this twice, makes this scenario even more unlikely given that it is relatively rare.

Another possible explanation would be that your hypo male is het for anery, not through ancestral inheritance but through spontaneous mutation. The rate of mutagenesis in snakes seems fairly high, in part due to what I can gather through a precursory research of the literature a fairly simple DNA repair mechanism.

This scenario would explain the lack of anery in the father's background and the production of the two anery females. However, it's my understanding that a similar situation happened with Ken, however, he produced two unexpected hypo offspring. The likelihood that a similar event happened with his animals seems a little unrealistic as well.

I've actually emailed an old genetics professor of mine, who has much more years of experience than I do. So we'll see what her thoughts may be.

Ralph

PS that should read DNA proofreading mechanisms, not repair.

Ralph,
..Very interesting information. Now I have to go do more reading about genetics.
Thanks a bunch!!!!grrr!!!!
Jeff

Ralph,

I'm finally considering crossing my hypo male back to his anery daughter. I wouldn't do it If I though for sure that this anery gene were recessive.

I figure, the worst thing that could happen is I get a clutch of het-hypo animals. If there are no visual anerys and no ghosts as a result of this pairing, it would lend credence to the fact that something else is going on.

Isn't it true that most traits are not determined by simple dominance and recessiveness? In most cases, the genetics behind traits are veru complicated. Maybe Jeff is right. Maybe there is no answer.

I'll be interested to hear what your professor has to say.

I got your e-mail. I'll reply a little later this evening.
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Mike --

I am NOT a genetics expert, but IMHO one of the problems with figuring out anery genetics in this species is that, again IMHO, a good number of the snakes being labeled as "anery" aren't actually anery at all. I see a lot of BROWN snakes labeled "anery". Maybe they are "hypo-ery"?
-----
----

0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (Arco, Olho)
1.3.1 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Chakar, Hari, Saksak)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (Coatl)
0.0.1 Mexican black kingsnake (Mora)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, Uce, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Mike,

Congrats, that's awesome to see your hard work and dedication pay off! Great stuff!

Thanks for sharing,
Ed

Thanks Ed. It feels pretty good.
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

WOW...WOW...WOW...!!!
Super good job...Mike.
KEN.

Thanks a lot Ken! Hey, it looks like you're doing pretty well yourself. I forgot to mention that you recently produced a clutch of Double hets as well. Nice work!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Mike,

Congratulations on producing the first ever Ghosts!! I've been waiting a long time to see these, and it's like Christmas to see your pictures. I simply cannot wait until I can make my own, but I feel that is a long way off yet.

Please post pictures as they grow. I am curious as to how the coloration (or lack-there-of) will develop with the combined genes being expressed.

Again, congrats on a momentous achievement!!!
-----
Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

That's the real question Aubrey. I'll definitely post pics. I'm really anxious to see what color changes she goes through. i expect the anery to turn brown as is typical. But, my hope is that the ghost will stay lighter.

Glad you like!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!!! Very glad you got the first ghosts even if there is something wacky going on with the Seib line Anery. It will be very cool to watch these little gems grow up.

The real question on everyone's mind is what is going on with the Seib Anery gene???? If not recessive than what is it and how to reliably reproduce more?
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Grats, they look awesome. I can't wait to see more pictures as they grow up.

-----
Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

One of the things I enjoy about this hobby is that it presents us with challenges. We'll solve the mystery of this gene. Just a matter of time.

Thanks for the kind words!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

It's a thrill to see these. Thanks for posting!
-----
----

0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (Arco, Olho)
1.3.1 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Chakar, Hari, Saksak)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (Coatl)
0.0.1 Mexican black kingsnake (Mora)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, Uce, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Glad you like them. Thanks!
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Congratulations Mike!!! The next few years should be very interesting!

Dan

Congrats Mike, you must feel ontop of the world with these, I have been curious to see what ghost BRB's would look like every since I've seen the first anerys.

Zack
-----

Zack Greens Reptiles

I can't wait to see what they look like as adults. I don't generally like black/white/gray as much as bold orange/red, but it will be really interesting to see how their iridescence shows up against the white background...
-----
----

0.1 Peruvian rainbow boa (Amaru)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (Arco, Olho)
1.3.1 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Chakar, Hari, Saksak)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (Coatl)
0.0.1 Mexican black kingsnake (Mora)
2.7 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, Uce, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Mike,
...CONGRATULATIONS!!! This achievement is a nice complement to your work with the FIRST of the hypos. Seib is the right person to be involved in this project with you.
...I think Ralph has some interesting ideas about the genetics involved in this project. The genetics of snakes do seem to produce new morphs more often than would be expected. I think this also is the case with fish considering the rapid progression of new and multimorphic lines among tropical fish breeders. The more we learn about genetics the more we know we don't know.
...We have seen over time that the anerythristic gene in BRBs is problematic. People's breeding results with other lines of what seem to be "real" anerythristic animals have produced disappointing results. In other cases there have been snakes that when born looked normal and later turned into what look like anerythristic animals. AFAIK breeding trials with those animals have not produced anerythristic babies and many of the projects have gone on long enough that the ontogentic change to anerythrism seen in the founder animals should have but in fact has not shown up in any of the produced animals. My production of white crescent BRBs had many people thinking of anerythrism when in fact this trait is at least in my opinion just a normal color variation. I think that the ontogentic change to what looks like anerythrism that many of us have seen in a few of our BRBs is not a genetic trait but is instead a benign (except for the obvious color loss) pathology. These different mechanics of anerythrism and the different bloodlines and the surprisingly poor results of breeding them in the past have us all completely confused. This makes it impossible to come up with a simple explanation for the seemingly odd results numbers wise that you have seen. Hopefully your animals will prove to have simple recessive genetics and in combination with the hypo genetics produce lots more ghosts for you in future breedings.
...The science geek I am makes this tough to say but....some questions do not have answers.
Jeff

Very interesting stuff. A couple more things to consider, assuming I even have a clue what I'm talking about.

1) I did some research a few years ago on pigmentation, and in some animals melanins (not erythrins) can produce yellows, oranges and reds. If I remember correctly, the specific animals studied were birds. Pigmentation is (or can be) incredibly complicated, imo. Maybe there are a lot of snakes that are anerythristic, they just don't look like what we expect them to look like. I wonder if anyone has ever done some experiments on BRB skin to see if erythrin is even present?

2) Maybe it's possible that separate genes control coloration of different parts of the body. For example, maybe one gene controls only the crescent coloration, while another gene controls the dorsal pattern, while another controls the ground color. And one of these might "override" one or more of the others. (Jeff, have you ever tried to selectively breed for the white crescents???)

Great thread, hopefully we can get a better understanding of this.

Thanks,
Ed

>1) I did some research a few years ago on pigmentation, and in some animals melanins (not erythrins) can produce yellows, oranges and reds. If I remember correctly, the specific animals studied were birds. Pigmentation is (or can be) incredibly complicated, imo. Maybe there are a lot of snakes that are anerythristic, they just don't look like what we expect them to look like. I wonder if anyone has ever done some experiments on BRB skin to see if erythrin is even present?

The different melanins you're referring to are eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin can further be categorised as black eumelanin and brown eumelanin. Depending on the levels of other pigments present, black eumelanin can impart a grey colouration while brown eumelanin can impart a yellowish colouration.

Pheomelanin produces a reddish-pinkish colouration.

Pigmentation in birds depends on the pigments present, as well as the way light interacts with the structure of the feathers.

Do reptiles HAVE pheomelanin?? I think of them as having erythrin *instead* of pheomelanin....but I could very easily be wrong about that...
-----
----

1.2 Peruvian rainbow boas (Amaru, Asiru, Kulipsa)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (Arco, Olho)
1.3.1 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Chakar, Hari, Saksak)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (Coatl)
0.0.1 Mexican black kingsnake (Mora)
2.4.4 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, Uce, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

>Do reptiles HAVE pheomelanin?? I think of them as having erythrin *instead* of pheomelanin....but I could very easily be wrong about that...

No, they don't produce pheomelanin. Which was the thinking behind my last post, however, I wrote it in a hurry and it wasn't very clear! Since they lack a mechanism to produce pheomelanin, the reddish-pink colouration seen in snakes must be due to some other pigment.

Okay, it appears that reptiles do NOT have pheomelanin:

"Birds, like mammals, produce both pigment types (for a review, see Mundy, 2005), but reptiles lack pheomelanin (Ito and Wakamatsu, 2003), suggesting that either reptiles have the lost the ability to produce pheomelanin or that mammals and birds independently have evolved the ability to produce pheomelanin."

http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v97/n3/full/6800861a.html
-----
----

1.2 Peruvian rainbow boas (Amaru, Asiru, Kulipsa)
2.0 Brazilian rainbow boas (Arco, Olho)
1.3.1 Honduran milksnakes (Chicchan, Chanir, Chakar, Hari, Saksak)
1.0 Thayeri kingsnake (Coatl)
0.0.1 Mexican black kingsnake (Mora)
2.4.4 corns (Cetto, Tolosa, Uce, TBA)
1,000,000.1,000,000 other critters

Ed,
...After I posted earlier today I was thinking about the posts you had made before about color in birds and reptiles. The articles you linked back then were interesting. Cyanophores, melanaphores etc. it is pretty complicated how they all work in combination to produce the expression of colors that we see in the animals. Ralph seems to know more about this subject than anyone I have talked to. Also to consider is that in combination with the color of the skin some of the red coloration in reptiles is due to blood in underlying tissue and much of the yellow color is due to fat, both in and under the skin.
Jeff

>Ralph seems to know more about this subject than anyone I have talked to.

Hi Jeff,

Unfortunately, my knowledge when it comes to reptiles is very limited. My personal experience deals mostly with parrots, fish and orchids. My Ph.D. work was centered around DNA repair heterogeneity with mice (almost exclusively).

But...luckily, the concepts are generally applicable to more than just one group of animals.

Ralph

Thanks Jeff. Needless to say... I'm very happy.

I've seen several "anery" over the last few years and, admittedly, their adult coloration has matched the appearance of the Seib and Sharp lines. There's a breeder animal posted a few threads down and If I didn't know any better, I'd say IT was anery. I agree with you that these snakes are probably not truly anerythristic.

What I have not seen, are babies that match the appearance. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but at this point, I don't think there have been any baby anerys produced that didn't originate from one of these two lines. It may be too simplistic but it seems that what we want to refer to as anerys are snakes that begin life with that gunmetal-gray coloration and darken over time.

And, you could be right, perhaps we won't be able to fully understand how this gene works. I have some additional test-crosses in mind but am not looking forward to the long wait. It's going to take someone with more patience that I have.
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

Can you chime in with your results?

So far if I have it right Mike had three litters and mentioned a total of 5. I thought you had done some number of pairings (sounds like 2) and would love to see the entire set of results in one place.

ML1) 08/18/2010 10 total, 3 Hypo, 7 normal
ML2) 08/30/2010 11 total, 2 Ghost, 1 Anery, 1 Hypo and 7 normal
ML3) 09/09/2010 16 total, 6 Hypo, 10 normal

Totals up to 37 babies, 2 ghost, 1 Anery, 10 Hypo and 24 normals
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

OK. I got three clutches, 17, 19, and 7.

No anerys, no ghosts. Imagine my disappointment....Like Mike, I raised my half of our 2005 babies to adulthood and I had pretty high hopes.

From the first two clutches I got 2.7 hypos. There were a number of snakes that appeared to be anery at birth, but not so after shedding.

The third clutch has not yet shed. There appears to be one hypo in there.

There are animals that look ghostlike, like a hypo ball python, but not like a true ghost, not like the ones that Mike produced.

I am very happy for Mike. I'll keep my fingers crossed for next year. I'm going to breed a hypo male to a 2006 anery het hypo female, one of 2 that Mike and I split from that clutch.

Adding in those litters.....

ML1) 08/18/2010 10 total, 3 Hypo, 7 normal
ML2) 08/30/2010 11 total, 2 Ghost, 1 Anery, 1 Hypo and 7 normal
ML3) 09/09/2010 16 total, 6 Hypo, 10 normal
RS1 RS2) 17 19 = 35 total, 9 Hypo, 26 normal
RS3) 7 total, 1 hypo, 6 normal

Grand total is 79 babies, 2 Ghost, 1 Anery, 20 Hypo and 56 normals. Well within statistical probabilities on Hypo at 22/79 = 27.8% (expected 25%)

Have you done other pairings with your Aneries and produced Aneries?

Is it the your whole Anery line that is not recessive or only when combined with Hypo?

Sorry for the blunt questions, just trying to figure out what happened? Between you and Mike with these 6 pairings you should have been sitting on 5 visual Ghosts, 15 visual Aneries, 15 visual Hypos and 45 visual normals. (I know, ads up to 80, not 79) and of course there should have been some small variation in the actuals.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Wow wow wow, congrats .. finally got to see what the Ghost BRB looks like!!!

Amazing BRB
-----
Anthony Young, UK

Thanks Anthony. The biggest question now is, will they keep their looks, or change like anerys do. At this point, they've both eaten. So I guess we sit back and watch them grow up.
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com

LOL, didn;t look at this one since it was not a reply to Robert.... Yes your math is correct. The really odd part is looking at the individual morphs and expected outcome. Again, rounding up to 80.....

Het Hypo x Het Hypo (very close to expected outcomes)

Expect 20 Hypo, got 22.
Expect 60 non Hypo, got 57

Het Anery x Het Anery (amazing how far off the results were from expected.

Expect 20 Anery, got 3
Expect 60 non Anery, got 76
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Wow, I'm away for a few days and look what I missed! Now I know what I want for Christmas, hehe! I'm not a breeder, so I don't get overly excited about morphs, but the ghosts are sheer awesomeness!

Thanks, they really are pretty cool. They have a silvery-gray appearance that I hope they keep.
-----
Mike Lockwood
www.tooscaley.com