We know gender influences size on some colubrids, right? At least, I think there's a consensus on that. Certainly on body size/girth in some species, if not on length, but perhaps the latter too?
Well, if that's true, what about gender diffs in appearance?
I've noticed male hypo hondurans seem cleaner than females, generally speaking. (i'll post this on that forum too, it's all Lampropeltis). Has anyone else noticed that? Or a comparable gender diff on wild-type hondos? Another example: I've seen numerous female amelanistic hondos and amelanistic nelsoni that were "high yellow," lots of ontogenetic gain in yellow in areas that would be black or white or both. Are males showing that change as frequently as females? My tiny bit of "data" may be skewed just because i keep a lot more females than males.
Or any other gender diffs in appearance? What about brooksi--are the lighter, most yellow wild-type brooksi usually males? females? no diff? I think Paul pointed out some diffs in brindle black rats in an earlier thread (on "peanut butter" brooksi, on the kingsnake forum)--has anyone observed wild-type black rats and noticed any diff between males showing more rich colors and remaining pattern, vs females being darker, more black? Any other species?
I ask because of the questions in the thread re: PB brooksi. Maybe the diffs in the male and female "het" PBs are actually showing what results after a genetic change is applied uniformly to males and females which differ in certain ways, though we seldom notice them. (example: suppose there's yellow & red (erythrins) and black/brown (melanin) in a species' normal coloration. Suppose males and females have the same amount of melanin but females have more erythrins, or gain more over time...that might not be conspicuous or even evident on a normal "wild type" but suppose there's a hypomelanistic morph--with the melanin reduced, the females' greater concentration of yellow or red pigment becomes noticeable, and males and females would differ. Maybe--sometimes--the diffs we see are diffs that exist in the wild-type animals too but aren't observable til part of the coloration is altered, revealing that gender diff. It seems reasonable to assume the ontogentic change that adds so much yellow to some amel hondos is also taking place on all other hondos as well, but is just not noticeable (the only slight diff might be that the dark rings on hypos ought to lighten--"yellow-up" a little on hypo females going thru that ontogenetic change, and i'm not aware of anyone ever reporting that. Maybe traditional hypos have so much melanin in those rings (they GAIN melanin over time too--the dark rings definitely darken on regular hypos) that the yellow gain is obscured.
I'm not saying any of this IS the case, and I'm not trying to apply this specifically to the questions about the PBs, i'm poking around at possibilities, seeing if something strikes a spark with someone and may give us some more insight.
terry
