Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Male desert bred to normal female.Six eggs,cut them and found four deserts one spider one normal.Female normal was just breeding age this year as far as I can remember.If I have made a mistake with the female it did not happen last year as the only male with a spider gene in it used for breeding was a killer bee.Killer was not bred to any normals.this female weighs 1200 grams after she laid.I doubt that she would have been old enough two years ago or retain sperm for two years.Any thoughts would be appreciated.Will post pics of the clutch when they are out of the egg.

A couple possibilities off the top of my head...

1) A spontaneous mutation? Unlikely, but it happens.

2) Maybe it's not a spider? Something new?

3) She snuck out her window late one night...(darn teenagers)

Just goes to show you never know what is going to hatch out of an egg!

Interesting to say the least...

John

Very interesting, Terry. Congrats on the deserts. Any chance you can share some pics so we can take a look at the clutch and spider in particular?
See you tomorrow!
John
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John Woolard Reptiles

I like the spontainous mutation theory, especially since I would swear I have a yellow belly enchi female from a YB male bred to CH normal lol.

Congrats on those odds! That must have been a sweet clutch to peek in on!
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Brian Hettinger
480 Pythons
Next year = True ghost pastave's!
Contact us

The Killer Bee can't be the dad or it would be a Bumblebee, not a Sider. Can't wait to see a pic of the little guy. Very exciting!

.
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Slytherin Serpents

Have you been hugged by your snake today?

Ball Pythons
1.1 Normals het Caramel (Edward & Bella)
0.1 Normal 66% ph Caramel (Rosalie)
0.1 Caramel (Bellatrix)
1.0 Honey Bee (Aragog)
0.1 Hypo Pastel (Nagini)
0.1 Spider 66% ph Hypo(Nymphadora)
1.1 Mojaves (Lucius & Renesme)
0.1 Pastel Lesser (Narcissa)
0.1 Pinstripe (Arwen)
1.0 Pewter (Salazar)
0.1 Bumble Bee (Alice)
0.1 Lemonblast (Luna)
1.0 Bell Pastel (Jasper)
0.1 African Dinker (Esme)
0.1 Normal (Madame Olympe Maxime)
0.1 Het Pied
0.2 Normal Babies 66% ph Caramel
1.1 Pastel "Dinker" Babies (Snape & Madame Hooch)

Corns
1.1 Normals het Amel, Anery, Charcoal, Diffused, Hypo (Romeo & Juliet)
0.1 Blizzard het Diffused (Tumnus)
1.0 Blizzards poss het Anery, Hypo, Diffused
0.1 Anery Lavender het Amel (Lucy)
0.1 Plasma poss het Hypo (Victoria)
1.0 Plasma poss het Albino
1.0 Hypo Plasma
0.1 Opal (Jewel)
0.1 Amel Motley
0.1 Diffused poss het Anery
0.1 Diffused poss het Anery, Albino, Charcoal, Hypo
0.1 Lavender Motley poss het diffused
1.0 Charcoal Ghost poss het Anery, Albino, Diffused
0.1 Charcoal poss het Albino, Anery, Diffused, Hypo
0.1 Fire poss het Anery, Charcoal, Hypo (LeeLoo)
0.1 Normal het Albino, Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused
1.0 Albino het Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused

Hog
1.0 Tri Color (Molly)

Well you could have had two snakes father the clutch. The odds were great for the desert father, but if the killerbee did father it the odds for him were bad.

I would venture to guess somewhere along the line your girl was with a male carrying a spider gene. Maybe it was unintentional but that would be my guess.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

nihil facimus sed id bene facimus

Did either your desert or the normal female come from a clutch with spiders?

One theory on the paradox animals is that they are chimeras; basically twins blended into one animal. For example, maybe your normal female came from a clutch with both normal and spider babies and in her case two fertilized eggs merged into one animal (sort of the opposite of identical twins). One of the eggs was a normal and one was a spider. However, by chance the normal sibling controlled most of the skin but maybe some of the reproductive organs are from the spider sibling. Same could apply to your desert if it had spider siblings, maybe he throws some spider sperm and you will see this when pairing him with other females.

Chimeras might be produced fairly often but until we started working with mixed morph clutches where we could sometimes see the paradox effect of blending two babies into one (for example an albino and a normal) you would never notice it with a two normal chimera. Paternity testing has only recently brought to light that it might be happening more than you think in humans. There was a famous case where testing showed that a woman wasn't the mother of her children but was their aunt because her ovaries came from a twin.