Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a male poss het pied that I bought from the Sutherlands back in 02. He has the double black line and the pure white belly that everyone is calling a "marker" to the pied gene. I bred him last season and I got 3.7 ...... all the babies but one were "markers"... I bred him again this season to a different female and got 5.6 all the babies but two were "markers"..... Last year I gave away the 3 males and kept all the females. Do you guys really think that this "marker" thing is true? Would you rather buy a poss het thats a "marker" or you wouldnt care either way. My last question is how much do you think a 25% poss het pied male is worth...

Thanks in advance for any info

Raul

The marker isn't that well accepted yet. It's mainly talked about by people like you (I'm assuming here) and I you have seen it get passed down but haven't yet proven it for our selves. Last year I sold my male 25% chance hets with the markers for normal price - $40. I think I even sold the last one to a pet store for $25 after no one at the last herp show wanted him. Without confirmation of the sign from someone who has actually produced lots of piebalds there is too much uncertainty to charge more than the going 25% chance rate (i.e. no up charge at all). To me it’s just a nice option for first come first serve buyers to pick up the ones with the marker. By the way, these really aren't worth shipping so even if I do end up producing some again this year this isn't an advertisement.

I didn't really need any extra het males so I didn't keep any of the marker 25% ones I produced last year. I kind of wish I had kept the ringer one just to see how he grew up looking and as a backup. I did keep ALL the female 25% chance hets, with the sign or not. I am concentrating my feeding efforts on the ones with the sign (550 – 750 grams now, even with concentrated feeding I’m not doing all that great).

Last season I got one baby female that is killer. She is pushing 1000 grms so she might breed come this fall. I KNOW that this male is a het his babies even have that pied pattern up top.... between his babies and another poss het male I got from Joe Compel I have 15 poss poss het pied females..... would be nice if both males were hets....I will try to post some pics of the girls soon

Raul

The belly striping may very well be genetic. As far as a marker for het pied, I'd say definitly sometimes.
I have some het pieds with, and some without. I also have some albino hets with and some without, some normals with & some without... see a trend here? Honestly, I don't, except that it just appears sometimes. Would I look for it when buying a het pied? No. I'd go to a breeder I could trust that whatever I got (belly marks or not) that it was a het pied.
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I think most everyone agrees that some for sure het pieds don't have the marker belly. If I forked over the bucks to buy a 100% chance het pied from a breeder I trust I wouldn't worry at all if it didn't have the marker. Some people seem to have a lot of trouble with the idea of a marker not being seen in all hets. I can't explain it for sure but I accept it. I think sporadic het sign is well documented in the “recessive” granite and green Burmese python mutations.

I think the big question is if it is reliable when seen in possible hets (i.e. are those possibles much more likely to be hets than the possibles with out it). The main obstacles to it being useful when seen are the questions of if it's unique to het pieds and if it’s actually caused by the pied gene it's self and not some other gene common in pied lines. I've heard of it being seen in non-het pieds but I would like to see some pictures to compare with the pied line bellies to see if it's really the same thing or just something similar. Ideally I'd like to see pics of known het pieds and known not het pieds (i.e. not just assumed normals but actually bred to pied lines and proven not het). Even though none of my animals are yet proven het or not het I'll try to get some updated pics taken and uploaded in case no one else has any to post for this discussion.