Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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I don't know if amelanism can be detected by any bloodwork on this planet. If so, and its under $500, I would hazard that a new industry would begin. And it wouldn't stop at amelanism.
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I don't believe there are yet any genetic tests available for ball pythons.

I know someone who was looking into it for detecting het piebald back when the hets where $12,500 each. In theory it could be done but there are several difficulties.

First someone would have to identify the gene that is causing the mutation. I'm no expert but I suppose this would involve comparing millions of genes between known hets, homozygous mutants, and proven non hets (random unexpected hets could really screw this process up I would expect). It would be the proverbial looking for a needle in the haystack. I've heard that the technology is ever improving and getting faster and cheaper so perhaps someone with knowledge of where it is now could speak to how long it MIGHT take to accomplish this part and how expensive it might be.

Then you would need to develop an economical "probe" for the samples you want to test to detect the mutant gene you found in the first step. Again, I don't know much about this but got the idea that this shouldn't be that big of deal, at least compared to finding the gene to start with. The guy I talked to mentioned something to the effect that once you have identified several mutant genes it might be possible to develop a probe that could test for more than one at once.

Then you would need to market the test at a price that breeders would be willing to pay before the morph becomes devalued to the point that your test is obsolete.

It's a fascinating area and I would love to see it happen but there are certainly some obstacles.

I’m thinking that perhaps a technically easier genetic test might be paternity testing and that it might have a wider and opened ended (never obsolete) application in the industry so perhaps we’ll see a commercial test for that sooner.

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