Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1. I thought that hypomelanism was a co-dominate trait that could also be dominate. Is this just the way it works for snake species? If so, then when a trait is found it just has to be proved out correct? I mean its not cut and dry this is how this trait works in every species. It can effect them differently?

2. Also, I thought that Kevin had proven the Leusisitic trait out. If so, isn't a leusistic trait not suppose to allow ANY color except white? Or, like Paul mentioned is this just one of the varying degrees of the Leusistic trait to be able to show some color. I know there has been speculation on htis trait here in the forum.

3. If Snow dragons from normal clutches ( snow dragons are a form of hypomelanism correct?) are bred to say a Chris Allen red and produces awesome babies that keep the red with a reduced pattern and whiter background, how could that snow trait not be at least co-dominate? The other hypos out there when bred to colored animals seem to caus ethe babies to drop they're color at around the second or third shed and the trait is evident even without the other being "het" for hypo. Or at least the color becomes a very washed out pale cloudy look with age.

4. for beardielover..... i bred a sandfirered/redflame female to a snadfireyellow/zillafroggy/pastel amle that was a very yellow animal and out of the 14 that hatched I had one red, several that had oranges and yellows characterisitc of the zillafroggy bloodlines and two that were golden and two that were pastel (not the clear nailed ones the ones that stole thier name. colors don't mesh in breeding like they do at the say crayola factory for lack of better terms....LOL it seems that the color traits that have been bred into the bloodlines you have all can manifest in the same clutch or some dragons can show two or three of the color traits. But red and yellow I don't believe make orange......

This is mostly my opinion from what I've observed and experienced THAT"S ALL. Don't meen to beat a dead horse I just want to understand this better. Thanks everybody!!

Robert WOod

Robert,

" ( snow dragons are a form of hypomelanism correct?)"

I'm not sure about the snow dragons but snow snakes are a result of two traits showing up at the same time, not Hypo but rather Anerythristic & Amelanistic. Therefore lacking the red pigment from the anery & lacking the black from the Amel.

I guess what I'm getting at is,, what traits is it that the snow dragons are getting their name from, or is it just another color name for them?
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Joel R

Coming Soon!
www.SpikesAndScales.com

Is amelanistic another name for albino? I didn't even think to put it that way. To be a true snow animal it would have to posses the anerythristic and albino gene. So we have another named trait misused in the breeding of beardies.

SOOO.... what woudl you call a Snow dragon? What are the genetics that make up a snow? light hypoXlighthypo...producing a superhypo? There are traits in the ball python world that the hets show a different color than a normal such as the platinum and the lesser platinums also another trait has been proved this way by Corey Woods and Ralph Davis. I believe it was the cinnamon pastel. The pastels also are a codominate trait that show up different when bred together to show a dominate or Superpastell this has been proved by the Sutherlands. Hmmmmm...
Like Paul stated there are different levels of the trait represented in the pastels some are prettier than others but the Superpastels basically have the same look to them.

I hope someone else finds this interesting and not just me. I don't meen to bore anyone. Thanks for the input!!

Robert Wood

Robert,

First of all, I think from my understanding of bearded dragon genetics most visible phenotypes are the result of more than one gene activity. That is why you get a "blending" of traits. Codominance implies 3 discrete colors, ie. red, pink and white. The colors in bearded dragons seems to be a complete gradient, implying polygenic activity, not codominance of a single allele.

I think the confusion comes in hypomelanistic gene because there are varying forms of lightness in dragons. Just like people can range form really white to really dark so can dragons. It doesn't mean there is a single gene controlling how dark our skin is however. The way you can tell the difference between a polygenic trait and a codominant trait is in breeding the F1 generation. Lets say a dark skinned person and a really fair skinned person have kids. Their kids will be somewhere in between in skin coloration. If skin color was a codominant trait, if two people with fair skinned and dark skinned parents had kids you would get 3 discrete skin colorations: fair(25%), dark(25%) and somewhere in between(50%). But this does not happen. Generally all the kids will have about the same coloration as the parents.

In dragons you can have light dragons and dark dragons, none of which are homozygous or heterozygous for the hypomelanistic gene, they just have lighter or darker "skin" color.

As far as leucistics go, I have yet to see this trait in a dragon. It is my theory that the "leucistics" on the market are simply snow dragons (meaning really light dragons who do not carry the hypomelanistic gene...I have one, here's a picture, notice the light color and dark nails:

with the hypomelanistic gene crossed in. Since these dragons have very little color to begin with, when the hypomelanistic gene is introduced they turn almost completely white. It's akin to bleaching hair. Lets say the bleach is the hypomelanistic gene. If you bleach dark hair it turns kind of orange, not white. But if you bleach hair that is already really light, it will turn almost white. If a dragon was really leucistic you would not have any color or pigmentation at all, and all the luecistic animals I have seen do not match this description. Plus the luecistic animals have clear nails, just like the hypomelanistic animals.

Hope this all makes sense and helps out =)

Peter

Peter,

I know nothing about the genetics of beardies, as I am new to all of this, but I just wanted to say you have the most beautiful animals and take amazing pictures. You and Bennett should collaborate on reptile picture book. One of those coffee table type books. I am not just "blowing smoke" either I am serious. I consider myself a connoisseur of animal pictures (meaning I can appreciate but not duplicate )
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Stacey

Thanks Stacey =)

If you haven't seen them you can see some others at the link below.

Peter
Bearded Dragon Pictures

It is my theory that the leusistic dragons are a true hypo dragon. I don't believe either that they are really leusistic because they can have other colors introduced into them. However this trait has been proved recessive I believe. Kevin has produced these white dragons from het to het breedings according to his posts where he is selling hets.
I do have a question about the co-dominate thing you said. It involves pink white and yellow... These three colors seem to show up in almost every one of the snows produced by Kevin that are really white. Some are pinker and some are more yellow and some are just white. Would this imply a codominate trait? If it did is it possible that there are two forms of hypomelanistic dragons one being recessive and the other being codominate? That would be different.
I still question the fact that the hypo line seems to drop color for the most part around the second or third shed and the "leusistic" dragon generally holds the color into adulthood. Strange to me.
Also, the "snow" dragons that were produced from clutches of normal babies hold the color too. I don't know much about that phase of snow dragon though other than they seem to be whiter like the leusistics.
Thanks for your feedback! and you have some beautifull dragons btw!

Robert

I until just the other day did not know that the hypo dragons were recesive and do not know if I believe that. The leucistics are said to be a pure reccesive trait. And the same for the transluscent. The most believable one is the transluscents. The lucy's which probably are not truely leucistic haven't been produced by many people (only one I know of is Keving from dragons den). All of the orange, reds, and yellows do not follow pure recesive, codom, or dominant patterns. I do not believe the hypos do either. I believe hypo breeds out just like the other color morphs (I don't think morph should be used but rather phase). Maybe there is a true line of hypos that breed out to punnent square going het to het making 1 in 4 hypos. or hypo to het making 1 in 2 hypos. But I think people have breed dragons selectively to produce they hypo look just like the reds, oranges, and yellows. Snow dragons I personally think are just another name for hypos. But just someone else's line of dragons. Kevin from dragon's den lists them together lending some credibility to this idea. The lucy dragons may very well be just another form of hypo, and maybe even another one that does not breed true to being reccesive. To prove it someone would have to breed a het to a het and get 1 in 4 lucy dragons. No one has done this to my knowledge. And also breed a lucy to a lucy and get all lucys. In a dragon this shouldn't be that hard to do. I mean you pop out 100 babies in a year. So if they breed true someone should be able to say hey I breed a het to a het and got 100 babies of which 25 were lucy. And the number should be darn close to 25 (I would gues 23-27) because of the large sample size. But I personally feel that it is just another phase of dragon. And the wrong name thing doesn't matter. You can call something what you please. It doesn't matter that in boas a snow is an albino anertheristic snake. In balls a snow is a albino axanthic. In corns they have snows (albino and a form of anery) then you have blizzard which is an albino anery. Same thing happened in leos. And it also doesn't matter that the hypo gene in boas is dominant. In balls hypo is called ghost and it is reccesive. In balls there are albinos which are reccesive, then the T (caramel) which is reccesive. Then you have the coral glow, which seems to be a type of albino (I think another typpe of T albino) and It is believed to be dominant or codominant. It is nothing to get all stressed about that in the dragon world we call hypo dragons snow. I personally think before someone starts to sell het for something (lucy, hypo, translucent) they need to show some evidence that it is. Like I mentioned above. Or sell them as a lucy X normal or what have you. I personally only think there is one true reccesive trait out there and that is transluscent although there hasn't really been any proof of that posted. I do not believe that there is any co dom or dom traits either. I think most of the morphs out there are just phases. The clear nail thing may breed out to be recesive but I do not believe that it is linked to a color morph (hypo). I think you can get clear nail normals, clear nail reds and so forth. These are my views and that is it. Not trying to call anyone a liar or imply that anyone is misleading people. I think some traits have been labled recesive before it is fully proven out. I think most of the morphs are like hair color or skin color.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

First off I'm not stressed about someone calling a phase morph whatever anything they want. I was just making a point that it's getting confuseing..... I had forgotten about the ghost balls... I don't really understand that either. I guess that's just the way it is. I also agree with you that the clear nails is a trait all it's own as well and not linked to hypos.

I had also overlooked the fact that the ghost balls are a recessive form of hypomalenistic trait. Which makes me wander even more if there are two seperate forms of hypomelanism at work much like you mentioned with the albino balls and the albino boas for that matter.

So that answers the question if the traits can work differently in other species. Obviously they do. Or do we just have yet to see the recessive form of hypomelanistic ball pythons?

I'm gonna have to sleep on all this. My brain hurts....LOL
Thanks for your feedback!
Robert

I am not sure but there might be a codom ghost ball. there are so many different types of ghost balls. You have the artic ghost, the desert ghost, and probably a few others. Oh and then you can get into the ghost boa (hypo anery) and then the ghost ball is just a hypo, not a hypo axanthic. Go think about that one. What it all comes down to is people name what they produce. A lot of oranges came from sandfire. But now they are salmon hypos, peach hypos, red flame, and all sorts of other things. I think I should just soak all my dragons in kool aid and sell them all as red. No one will ever know. I will have red bellied screaming red flaming hot dragons. No but seriously people name there creations. you cross two mutations get a new one you name it there lies the problem there is no standard.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

If there was a standard there wouldn't be as many people producing dragons that noone wnats because they didn't know how the genetics worked. Alot of baby beardies are dumped into the wholesale market due to lack of color, lack of hoped for trait, whatever. If more people had access to how these genes were working in the dragons, in my opinion it would stop some of that. Not all but some.

I understand that there are people who name the phases they produce and that is not what I'm getting at. Name it whatefver you want but make the genetics known to others so they can impliment it into they're breeding how they want.

I meen buy a snow male from the hypo line, raise it, then breed it to a high red then all your babies drop all or most of the color by the third shed and the ones that do keep it are washed out and faded looking. Your wholesaleing dragons out plus your out time and money on a project that was doomed from the start. Granted it was fun, a good experience for future breedings, etc. but still a dissapointment and then there are those babies sitting in some crappy cage overrun with fecal and urate samples, more than likely not fed properly, exposed to god knows what kind of viruses or diseases, then sent to their doom at uncareing pet stores. Maybe those are the ones that should get the koolaid dip.

That's just my personal opinion and part of what I'm getting at with all this. Thanks for your help.

Robert Wood