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Do Morphs affect hatching time?

kohrn Jul 01, 2004 11:45 PM

Has anyone every noticed different morphs affecting the order of hatching?
I have a corn clutch hatching right now. Both parents are het for anerythrism. That should give me 25% anerythristics (the rest will look normal). At this point I have seven hatchlings and they are all normal. Has anyone ever noticed anerythristics taking a bit longer in the egg like this? (There are 15 or so more eggs to go, some of which have pipped).
Corinne
dragonfly@w-link.net

Replies (3)

Paul Hollander Jul 02, 2004 10:09 AM

I haven't heard of any effect by morphs on hatching time. It's not impossible, but there are other variables, like position in a clutch, that would (IMHO) have a greater effect on hatching order.

BTW, each egg having a 25% chance of producing an anerythristic baby does not mean that exactly 25% of the babies in each clutch will be anerythristic. In the same way, a coin has a 50% chance of coming down heads and a 50% chance of coming down tails when tossed. But that doesn't mean that tossing a coin twice will have it come down heads once and tails once. Try a few two coin toss series. Sometimes the coin comes down heads twice or tails twice instead of heads once and tails once.

Paul Hollander

kohrn Jul 02, 2004 11:05 AM

I know that. But the chances of the first 8 showing up normal are only about 1 in 10. Not yet statistically significant, but coming close. (.75 * .75 * .75 * .75 * .75 * .75 * .75 * .75) However, of the noses currently poking out of shells, I think two are anerythristic (can't be sure until they decide to reveal themselves more fully). There could be something more going on (anerythristics could take a day longer to develop) which is why I was asking if anyone else had ever noticed this trend. (Though this clutch seems to show hatching order being a matter of the bottom of the pile coming out first (which could be the order in which they were laid, since I took the eggs from her as a clump and buried them in vermiculite that way, or could mean the ones on the bottom were either warmer, or less subject to temperature fluxuations when I peeked in on them).
Last year (same parents) we had a clutch of 23 with 5 anerythrictics, and a clutch of 4 (an incubator disaster killed the rest) which was all normal.
Corinne
dragonfly@w-link.net

rtdunham Jul 17, 2004 02:17 PM

>>Has anyone every noticed different morphs affecting the order of hatching?
>> I have a corn clutch hatching right now. Both parents are het for anerythrism. That should give me 25% anerythristics (the rest will look normal). At this point I have seven hatchlings and they are all normal. Has anyone ever noticed anerythristics taking a bit longer in the egg like this? (There are 15 or so more eggs to go, some of which have pipped).
>>Corinne
>>dragonfly@w-link.net

I've never noticed a difference in hatching sequence, and believe me, when i'm waiting (and hoping) for a snow to appear in a clutch of hondurans, for example, i would have noticed that kind of distribution and it would have either lessened or increased my anxiety as hatching progressed. I doubt there's a diff.

terry
albino tricolors

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