Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was looking through the classifieds a minute ago, and i saw someone adveratizing a gecko as het for tangerine. i see stuff like this all the time, and it always frustrates me. so i emailed him, my whole email was just "there is no such thing as het for tangerine". then he emailed me back almost emediatly, saying "yes there is". now im really frustrated, am i wrong?
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

and I've never seen an albino with a black tail, or "baby eggs", or "2x het for albino"

but its really none of my business what other people think lol

I guess its up to everyone to make their own call on those things

my $0.02
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but it's not really. heterozygous means that depending on the breeding you do with it, it will for sure (or pretty sure), produce some of that trait. with tangerines, it is a line breed trait, its been bred so that the orange trait is exressed more, but there is no sure thing when breeding them. there is no way to for sure get tangerines when breeding tangerines together. there is a gene for tangerine, i think, but it is just the amount that is showing. the only way to control the amount of tangerine in a leopard would be to get a aneurystic(sp?), and that would mean no tangerine (red) at all. these as far as i know, havent shown up yet, but i think would be kool.
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

There isn't a true "het" tangerine, het is used for ressesive genes like albino and blizzard. Instead of het, it is common for breeders to use "carries the genes for" or, for example, "tangerinexcarrottail cross" for normal looking geckos coming from a line bred backround. Using these terms are just like using the word het, but instead for a line bred mutation. Any trait can be carried by a gecko and not be expressed, it just depends on how you say it. If it couldn't then it wouldn't be a true mutation, it would just be a fluke. Yes you can have a "het" tangerine but not in the sense that it's a ressesive but that it has the genes of a tangerine. I don't think you should of e-mailed him saying "there is no such thing as a het tangerine", if you e-mailed that to me I'd be kind of mad because it seems like you were jumping on his case a bit. Instead you should of asked here first because in my opinion it is fine for breeders to use the term het for ressesive genes, heck Ron Tremper the founder of stripes and jungles uses the term het for both these morphs, what does that tell you.
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Bradley Baquial

het refers to heterozugous... refering to a simple recessive trait.... tangerine is NOT a simple recessive and therefor does not make hets.... tang is a line bred trait so by using the term het he is implying by breeding 1.1 of these het you will get tang babies, which is not necessarily true and is an untrue statement and very misleading to any potential buyers. a true statement would be "the result of such and such breeding" but not het sounds like a con or swindle, someone who doesnt know any better and was swindled himself.. or someone showing true ignorance
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-robin day
Geckoheads And Geeks

that was EXACTLY my problem with it. linebred traits are genetically the same as wild type, right? to me its like this. in dogs, if you breed, lets say a german shepard and a dalmation, you get a mix of the two, not a wolf that is het for both. if you breed those back the dalmation, you still get a mix, now 3/4's dalmation and 1/4 shepard. i dont think anyone would call those hets.
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your head will collapse, but there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself, "where is my mind"

I would know that tangerine is a line bred trait and by saying het I would think that it has a tangerine backround. I guess it would be misleading if the potential buyer didn't know anything about leopard geckos (which I guess could happen) but in my eyes, someone who knows enough to know the difference between saying a het for tangerine and het for albino, I see nothing wrong. I know enough about leopard geckos to know that saying "het" for tangerine isn't the same as het for albino it simply means it comes from a tangerine backround and is not expressing it and I would not see anything wrong, I would just think that the breeder is using the term loosly, not wrongfully. If he were to be more politically correct then he could of used carries the genes but instead he choose het, we all know its not a ressesive gene and so whats the big deal. Know there would be a problem if he said that it was a ressesive, but you mentioned nothing of the sort or maybe thats what got to you, you thought thats what he meant. If I were to read it, it wouldn't have crossed my mind, I know tangerine is not ressesive and like I said I would just think he's using the term loosly.
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Bradley Baquial

i figured either a.) he was a complete idiot and didnt know his A$$ from a hole in the ground and b.) he was trying to scam or con someone regardless i laughed very hard...... funny thing is someone so stupid trying to con with het tangerines LOL
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-robin day
Geckoheads And Geeks

It has nothing to do with political correctness, it is outright false. Het=heterozygous=carrying a simple recessive gene for that trait, tangerime can't be het. It is really as simple as that. The add is misleading for people that may actually think that tangerine is a mutation as opposed to a line bred trait.

~Andrea

The animal that he was selling was a normal? Not a high yellow, or reduced spot... but let's say a VERY dark, melanistic and dull greenish yellow leo.
But because it was het, you could breed this with another het and get awesome super hypos.

That's probably what a few people new to breeding leos would think. Heck it took me a while to understand how all these genetics work. I did end up wasting money by purchasing a 'tang' leo as a baby. She's still my favorite leo. But she was not a tang. She's a very pretty reduced spotting high yellow. And I did learn my leson. But some people don't

I would think that saying that animal is a het is like saying that a normal leo with some random orange splotches on the tail is a hypo carrot tail (Which I've also seen in the classifieds...oy) Definetly not worth a higher price tag.

And the breeder's response to that e-mail was pretty uninformative. 'Yes there is'. The least the guy could have done is explain that it's not really het, but the parents are tangs so it carries the genes. As you described it. Not say that it IS het for tang.

"any trait can be carried in the genes and not expressed"

The entire principle of line breeding for line bred traits is to look for expressed traits, breed individuals with those traits together, in the hopes of getting good or better expressions of that trait on the next genetic dice roll. If an animal is not expressing a line bred trait well, it didn't get a good dice roll in the genetic lotto, and I would not expect it to produce any "better" offspring because its parents expressed the trait well than if they had not. Yes for example two tangerines can produce an animal that is more tangerine or less tangerine than either parent, but the continuum of apprearance in line bred traits centers around the expressed appearance of the parents. So saying het for tangerine is misleading even if you interpret it "generously".

I told another guy the same thing, because he posted his geckos were het. tangerine,and I got a response thanking me, and his next ad was corrected.

Nick