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On my final rounds last night I noticed Pearl had dropped her litter. She was my last pretty sure she's gravid female for 2011 so I might be done. I do still have a few maybe gravid females so only time will tell.

Pearl back in mid September, IMO clearly plumped up:

A month later in mid October, still looking gravid:

Last night, in the hide with her brood. When I found her she was swallowing a slug, her tummy looked like several more had already been eaten:

MMMMM, taters.....

In the space of only a few minutes, the pile of four slugs was down to one. I only stopped her as her mouth was starting to go around a live baby still in it's sack. I don't know how far she would have gone but was not going to risk it.

On to the babies, the pairing was Hypo male "Mickey" x Pearl line female "Pearl" with the intent of producing Pearl line Het Hypo's. I was expecting all the babies to be more or less normal looking babies - not pearls and of course het Hypo.

But!!

What do we have here?

And over here?

Yup, nine total babies two of which are Pearls!!! As far as I know this is the first Pearl x Hypo litter where actual Pearls popped up.

Both Pearls are female and brings to mind discussions about red tail boas and known cases of parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction - no male sperm involved). In all known cases, the babies are female and homozygous for each and every gene present. Mom passes on her half of the DNA strand which duplicates itself into the full strand instead of joining with a male contribution.

There's no way to know at this time if they are parthenogenetic babies or even if it's possible with BRB's. Will need to raise them up and breed them to a hypo and see if hypos pop out.

Fun stuff....
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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

Dave,
....Nice litter of babies. We do not know that the Pearl trait is a single factorial simple recessive trait. Two babies showing up with it in your litter might indicate that it is a dominant or co-dominant trait. Or, there is also the possibility that it is multifactorial. It is also possible as you mentioned that the two babies in the litter are the result of a parthenogenic event with the Pearl mother providing both Pearl trait alleles. The recent cases of parthenogenic births in reptiles have me wondering about strange breeding results reported by breeders in the past. The more we know, the more we don't know.
Jeff

Exactly, odd results may need an odd explanation. A good part of my questioning how I got two pearls is the result of several litters between Aubry and myself where Pearl x non-Pearl has resulted in whole litters of normal looking babies, not one single Pearl. Then in this relatively small litter, only 9 total babies, there are two with Pearl traits.
-----
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

One possibility is that Pearl is a co-dominant trait. As long as it isn't matched with a dominant trait on that locus, then the snake will be a visual Pearl.

In this case, let's say the mother is Het Pearl with another non-dominant trait on that locus. The male has a dominant and non-dominant trait on the same locus. The babies would have a 50% chance of receiving the Pearl trait from the mother. The father has a 50% chance of giving the babies his non-dominant trait. This would give the babies a 25% chance of being visual Pearls. This could explain how 2 of 9 babies are Pearls. Hopefully I used the correct terminology and made sense.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

n Co-domanant refers to there being two different expressions of the same morph depending on whether the individual has one or two morph genes.

I think my new Candy Stripe BRB line may be co-dominant where the zig zag dorsal striping and brighter color is the heterozygous form and the full stripe with scrambled side patterns and pink tongue is the homozygous expression of the trait.

From prior breeding trials, Aubrey and I have not seen any Pearls produced in Pearl x non-pearl line pairings. That proves the trait is not dominant. If not dominant, then it can't be co-dominant since there was no visual heterozygous form.

My pairing was to a non Pearl line related Hypo Male. Yes, he could be carrying a recessive Pearl gene. Either that or the Pearl female gave birth to two parthenogenic offspring.

Multiple genetic morph genes on one single locus are few and far between.
-----
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

As I understand it, certain genes can suppress the expressivity of another. I believe that's called Epistasis. I came up with that theory because I believe that Quince from Aubrey's Beryl/Quince litter isn't a visual pearl. I'm not sure if there is any Pearl in its background. I was wondering if the gene that causes the typical side crescent could be Epistatic. Maybe I'm on the completely wrong track, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

As far as I know, Quince is not related to the Pearl line. The only history I have on her is that the previous owner bought her at a pet store in Houston, TX when she was just a wee baby. I suppose there is still a small chance she could be related.

This whole Pearl thing has be confused. I tend to think it is more a line bred trait, but if that were the case you'd think there would at least be a good handful of bullseyes in a Pearl x Normal litter.

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Aubrey Ross

www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Dave and Jeff,

Excellent suggestion of parthenogenesis to explain the pearls, especially since the phenomenon has been proven in CRB. I had that thought as well when I first saw the post.

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/08/24/jhered.esr080.abstract?keytype=ref&ijkey=vEf71czorG3tzIj

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/booth

Great read if you can follow the language!!!

I would be curious if Dr. Booth would sequence the DNA of all the animals involved. I bet he would if you ask; it would make for a nice publication to follow the CRB article.

John

Yeah, I saw that paper before, way cool. And I've already lined it up with Warren, just need to collect and ID sheds for him.
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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

Very cool, you will need to update me on this one

very cool, maybe there is two types of "pearls" out there? or maybe there is more going on with pearls then originally thought? specially now with the zebra ones. im just glad im not the one who gets to figure it out lol congrats on your interesting litter