Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all

If i breed two lessers together, i will statistically get 50% Lessers 25% superLessers and 25% normals right?

My question is: Will the normals be het Lesser?

Thanks a lot

Jonas

Hi Jonas,
Your outcome is calculated correctly, but since there is no such thing as a het codom the normals are not hets. Reminded me of all the "het" pastels I see on craigslist. Funny stuff.
Good luck!
Charlton

You have the numbers right, but be aware that a significant amount of lesser x lesser or butter x butter blue eyed lucy's have bug eyes.
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John Vandegrift

The lessers in your clutch would actually be the true hets, even though some breeders don't realize it. Remember het does not mean "hidden gene". It functions this way in recessive animals, so that's a good working definition when talking to people who have no idea what a het is.

However, once you actually begin breeding or calculating for future breeding projects, it's important to realize that "heterozygous" actually means that the two alleles at the morph locus do not match. These mismatched alleles are what make it a het, whether that mismatch is expressed visually (like in dominant and co-dominant morphs) or hidden (like in recessive morphs).

For example:

Albino X Albino=
25% albino (homozygous)
50% het albino (heterozygous)
25% normal (homozygous)

Lesser X Lesser=
25% leucistic (homozygous)
50% lesser (heterozygous)
25% normal (homozygous)

As you can see, the calculations are identical. The only difference is in how you interpret the results. Hets in the recessive pairing are called "het albinos" to show that even though they look normal, they carry the albino gene. Hets in the co-dom pairing are simply called "lessers" because they are a visual morph and there is no need to call them hets... unless you want to call them "het lucys" which is entirely accurate. The normals however are NOT hets because if they had any lesser genes in them at all, they would be visually expressed. In recessive morphs, "het" is not visually expressed (it stays "hidden" but in dominant and co-dominant morphs the "het" is loud and proud.

*Even though a lesser is "het" you don't sell them as "het lessers" because it would be confusing to people who think "het" only means hidden gene. However het red axanthics are a perfect example of how het does NOT just mean "hidden" gene.

I was actually going to try and explain the exact same thing that you just did, but I really didn't know how. I learned about all this stuff in Bio, now on to Micro Bio....ugh!