Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been told patternless is co-dom. I believed this to be a recessive trait. Can anyone set me straight and let me know!

Thank you kindly!

~Katt
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~Katt

Katt,

I was just having a conversation about exactly that subject yesterday with a good friend. It seems thru what he and I have experienced to be both. I believe there to be two lines of the patternless trait in the hobby. I say this as I have experienced it both ways. The line I have from the ocalla area seems to be co-dominate and the leucistic line that Mark Bell has been working with seems to be a simple recessive. I still need to do some additional breeding in order to completely put my mind at ease regarding this, but from 6 years of results that is where i am at currently.

Sorry I can't be more definite.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Cherryville Farms - Reptiles

I've been breeding Ocala locality patternless s. pines for over ten years and it seems this trait is dominant

We have been working with them also for over ten years and we find that the patternless trait has not been consistently dominate. When bred to normals or other patternless animals from the same area the clutches have been split on about a 50/50 basis. That is on a group of 4 males and 11 females with neonates produced being in the range of about 75 animals per year. Don't get me wrong, I believe your claim and would be interested to know the number of animals you are working with. It is very possible that your animals are displaying this as a dominate trait, while others are not.

One other question I have for you would be what size are your southerns from ocala. In our group we have two distinct groups with dramatic size diference. One group that is very heavy bodied but matures out at about 5 - 6' and another group that is not as stout and is over 6 1/2' as an adult.

Thanks for the info.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Cherryville Farms - Reptiles

John/Scott, in my one experience breeding a patternless female(allegedly also from the Ocala locale) with a normal male, the results yielded 1 normal and 6 patternless. A couple were very light tan and as they matured didn't develop the "speckling" most seem to gain.

The female was a large snake, about 78" at 4 yrs, when I parted with her.

You can get a 50/50 split when you breed patternless with normal if the patternless is recessive for normal. Two recessive patternless, according to a Punnett square, will produce 25% normal. A 50/50 split would seem not likely but not improbable especially with the relatively small sample size we're talking about.