Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I have been breeding various boas for a few years now and lately have been getting interested in balls. I purchased several possible hets. I have seen a few adds on kingsnake and some other sites where people are selling possible het balls with "het genetic marks". I am curious to know what this is all about. What is the marker? How true is it? etc. As far as I know there is no visible sign of a het. Any thoughts, opinions, and additional info is welcome. Thanks in advance. Lee

There is good evidence that SOME het granite Burmese pythons show the puzzle pattern and SOME het green Burmese pythons show the leopard pattern. Both the puzzle and leopard patterns are intermediate between normal and their respective pattern mutations. Why some hets show these markers while some hets look perfectly normal I don't know.

Early this spring someone posted a pic and indicated that some breeders where looking for white bellies with thick black stripes lining the edges as a sign for het piebalds. That thread no longer seems to be available however the discussion lead to plenty of people pointing out that they have for sure het piebalds which do not show this marker. Given the sporadic nature of the signs in Burmese pythons I don't think the fact that some hets don't have it indicates that it can't be an accurate sign when seen in possible hets. However, there are also apparently some for sure non hets with similar bellies so it does get confusing.

Time will tell if it is an accurate sign when seen in possible het piebald ball pythons or not. It is a touchy subject because it affects the marketing of possible hets so information has been slow to emerge about it.

This year I bred two 50% possible het pied males with varying degrees of the marker and almost exactly half of their 20 babies had the marker. It did vary from individual to individual as to how clear it was. The best ones have totally white bellies and the thick black edging in the last 3rd or so.

Since I have not yet proven the 50% chance males much less done breeding tests with lots and lots of possible hets I really can't prove that the marker is accurate, but I’m getting pretty optimistic about the possibility.

I've heard rumors of markers in other pattern mutations but haven't seen good evidence yet. I'm even more skeptical of markers in hets for color mutations but now consider anything possible.

Speaking from a strictly genetic point of view (claims to know nothing about snakes here) the reason for a physical mark that might denote heterozygosity (not to be confused with a genetic marker which is very different) would be that there is some gene linkage i.e. the gene or genes responsible for the physical trait you are seeing is VERY close to the gene you think the animal is heterozygous for. They may actually be "touching" or they could just be close to eachother on the chromosome. The reason you wouldn't see the trait all the time would be because of crossing over during recombination and stuff like that. I hope that makes things a little more lucid. On a side if I were a breeder or a person who actually had $$$ I'd be fingerprinting my snakes to no end. I still may try to fingerprint my personal snake some time this year if I can figure out a cheap way to do it that won't get me in trouble but that's a stretch yet

I understand what you are saying about the linkage and I think that may be happening in some lines. I’ve been told that het Jolliff tend to be reduced pattern, is it really the Jolliff gene or a very close by gene? Then again given Corey Wood’s line of blackback axanthics maybe axanthic and pattern could perhaps in some cases be controlled by the same gene.

However, with the Burmese python examples the visible hets are exactly what I would expect half way between normal and the morph to look like. Even with the piebald ball python thing I can see how the alleged marker is like the beginning of pied with the white starting to creep up from the belly. Check out this ringer I hatched this year that also shows the marker belly. The black stripes at the two edge of the belly might correspond with the two black stripes on the "normal" areas on a pied between where the white comes up from their belly. The edges of this ring even have the bright yellow and waffley black seen around the edges of the pigmented areas on pieds. I’m sure there are some ringers that have nothing to do with pied but I’m wondering if sometimes it can also be a marker.

At least with the burms I'm thinking that the actual het gene is sometimes having a partial effect of the morph and sometimes it's completely recessive. Is this due to different alleles of the normal gene at this location, some that aren't as dominant as others? Could it be due to different developmental conditions or effects of completely different genes allowing the single morphs gene to partially express?

For Randy:
The gene you mention sometimes exerting a partial effect and sometimes being completely recessive, maybe it's a polygenic case? Perhaps there are two or more genes some of which are capable of codominance, hence the marking between "normal" and "morph", and some that are not hence the recessiveness? Perhaps the animals have multiple copies but don't need all of them to be a "morph" sort of like female mammals don't need the genes on both X chromosomes to be "on"? Just me spitting out ideas, way more interesting discussion than in the class I'm supposed ot be in If there were ever a genomic program for Bps (big daydream) then people could eventually save a lot of money and not have to deal with "possible hets" blindly.

I know someone who was looking into tests for het piebald back when the hets were much more expensive. At the time I think the odds of finding the gene responsible and developing a marketable test before the price of hets dropped seemed rather daunting. I'm wondering if rumors of this visible marker had anything to do with either that project going by the wayside (and fortunate if he gave up before spending too much money) or the quick drop in price of hets. I do feel that the marker in addition to the high initial price of the morph may have lead to the huge number of possible hets that where being produced early on. So, if you see a morph with lots of possible hets for sale be suspicious that there might be a marker. It could just be breeders working hard to produce more by working with possible het females but it could also be that there is a shortcut to keep them from investing too much time in the normal half of the possible hets.

It would take a few years to do the kind of stuff I'm thinking about but in the end the cost of the R&D would pay for itself in eliminating guesswork and possible hets. A big database could also be developed and breeders could do loans while also preserving diversity in the captive population. I wish there were money for it. I'm going to do a little myself because I do molecular work so I'm going to see if I can extract a decent amount of DNA and maybe RNA (not as easy) from a fresh shed for starters. My interest is kind of silly and whimsical. A friend of mine has a snake from the same place that mine came from and we are wondering if they share a parent (probably the sire due to the age differnce). So I was thinking if I could do a real general fingerprint for each of them and two other BP's I have access to who we KNOW are not possibly related I could maybe look at it that way. It's a long shot but it might work.

I think there could be a real sustainable market for a snake paternity test, unlike a test for a specific morph gene that will become obsolete and no longer cost effective as the gene becomes more common. Hopefully there is little problem from sperm retention or parthenogenesis but I could see sellers and buyers of high dollar hets spending a little extra to certify their "hets". There would probably also be times when breeders could use the tests as part of their keeper breeding program. I know I've used multiple males and then sold the entire clutch as normals when if I could have determined the father I might have kept some of them (still only possible hets in my case). A paternity test would provide flexibility in using multiple males.

Keep up the good work!

I saw the marker about as often and about as extreme in both genders with my small sample size (12.8 hatchlings).

Has anyone compared sexes in relation to this "marker"? I was talking to a college student about genetics in relation to Paradox kenyan sand boas. He brought up the sexes of the snakes and if I saw any difference in pattern between the two. Out of the 11.15 paradox kenyans I produced in the last two years, every male had more black markings than any female. I don't remember what he called it but it was directly related with curtain inheritable genetics. Thank you, Lee

Probably "sexlinked".

Most sexlinked mutant genes are found in the unpaired portion of the larger sex chromosome when a species has two sex chromosomes of different sizes. For example, male mammals have a large X and small Y chromosome, and female mammals have two large X chromosomes. Male birds and colubrid snakes have two large Z chromosomes, and female birds and colubrid snakes have a large Z chromosome and a small W chromosome. Unfortunately, I do not know if pythons have unequal sized sex chromosomes.

Paul Hollander

I do not believe it! I have 4 100% hets and some have those markers and some do not! Perhaps a sales ploy? Enron had good markes too ..... tell that to all the folks who lost money. HYPE!
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RicK Denmon

Ball Boutique,Inc.
What are we talking about?

The idea that a recessive gene could be indicated from seeing a "marker" is a bad idea. The marker described and pictured for the Het piebalds could easily be genetic. It cannot be the same gene as the one needed to create piebalds. Simple recessive genes will never show up in a snake. Now with that said, this marker could be another gene that has been accidently breed into some of the piebald hets from people breeding a normal snake with the "marker" gene" into a piebald het. If that is true, buying possible piebald het without the marker would be a greater risk then buying with the "marker", but not for the reason you are thinking. Buying a possible het with the marker merely means you have a better chance that the baby snake actually had a parent with the piebald gene and you are not getting ripped off. If you have a clutch of 8 eggs and 4 have the marker and 4 do not, it means nothing. The 4 that have the marker are just as likely to have the piebald trait as the 4 without the marker. The "marker" possibly another gene, but really doesn't have much correlation to the piebald gene.

HOOPY

The concept of a recessive mutation is something people made up. In nature there may not always be a clean line between say recessive and co-dominant. Piebald may be a recessive gene with co-dominant tendencies. The big question is why it wouldn’t be consistent.

Regardless, I just want to get to the bottom of this but it will take me years and those who have been working with them longer don't seem to be talking much. The genes are whatever they are regardless of politics/marketing/feelings. I'm glad we have places like this forum where we can try to get to the bottom of whatever the truth is.

The concept of a separate marker gene being liked to the actual morph gene is interesting and sounds like something that could happen, I'm just not sure it's what is happening in this case although it is a good explanation for the inconsistency. My main argument for the alleged pied marker actually being the direct effect the pied gene is that to me it looks like the beginning of pied creeping up from the belly (I’ve only seen pictures of real pieds but to me this looks like where the white comes from). I guess breeding results will eventually help us figure it out.