Reptile & Amphibian Forums

All this talk about het pied markers has got me thinking and posting. Here is a little one we received this year and although not your typical ringer it has a unique little belly patter. Almost like the het pied markers don't you think? Opinions please.....

Thanks,
Wyatt

TW Intl Inc.
Dallas, Tx

I assume this is from a wild harvested egg/mother from Africa?

Do ringers happen more often in het pieds than other lines? I've heard of some pretty good ringers coming from non-pied lines so it may just be a look alike phenomenon. Has anyone found a genetic ringer line yet? Maybe some sort of incubation accident causes ringers but het pieds might be even more susceptible to it. Who knows?

>>Do ringers happen more often in het pieds than other lines?

A customer of mine has one of the nicest ringers I have ever seen. She bought it as a guaranteed het pied from BHB. Nice snake indeed.
-----
AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

NAMED BEST REPTILE STORE IN LOS ANGELES

The only ringer I've hatched so far was a 25% chance het pied from a 50% chance het pied with the marker belly (which he passed to half his offspring).

Maybe the het pied marker belly is the same thing as a ringer belly but it happens much easier in a het pied? That might explain the sporadic nature of the het pied belly, they still need whatever incubation condition that can if sever enough cause the belly in a normal, it just happens easier with het pieds. But wait, that doesn't really explain why some family trees show the belly marker strongly and some other het pied lines don't. It pretty much has to be genetic in the het pieds. I just don't understand if there is a link to ringers or not.

I just don't understand if there is a link to ringers or not.

FWIW, I believe 'ringer' to be a developmental anomaly. An accident happens in incubation when the color is laid down. The fact it is almost always near the tail and across the belly may tell us something about this accident. Perhaps the egg is too dry (or wet or whatever) and the animal is improperly colored because it is bent tightly at that spot at the wrong time of development.

Just a thought.
-----
AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

NAMED BEST REPTILE STORE IN LOS ANGELES

"FWIW, I believe 'ringer' to be a developmental anomaly. An accident happens in incubation when the color is laid down."

What if the piebald gene is just a genetic predisposition to be more susceptible to whatever the developmental accident that causes ringerism is? Maybe if the incubation condition is extreme enough it can cause a ringer in any animal, regardless of genetics. In some het pied lines the genetic disposition to ringerism may be such that most hets have "ringer bellies". This could even explain the degree of white in homozygous pieds - it's a combination of the homozygous pied genes making them very susceptible to ringerism and the developmental conditions to determine how extreme their ringers are. In this theory a pied is just an extreme ringer that is homozygous for a gene that guarantees it will produce at least a little ringer and probably a lot depending on the developmental conditions.

So assuming this idea holds true...one could vary the conditions of a clutch of eggs to make higher/lower white pied. The only problem I can think of is that I have seen (pictures, not personally) clutches in which both very high white and low white pies were produced. It would be interesting to see where in the stack of eggs each of these pies came from. My GUESS is that the higher white pies were on the top of the pile and were drier than the lower ones (or maybe vise versa).

Matt

It could be some condition we can't control like how the baby happens to be laying in the egg. It might not take much out of the ordinary to push an animal with the right genes to tend toward being a ringer. In this theory that piebald is just genetically enhanced ringerism it appears that the conditions to make at least a little pied effect exists in the incubation of all homozygous pieds. I guess the place to figure out what the condition is would be to examine the not pied gene ringers since presumably the condition must have been extreme to cause the effect in an animal not genetically susceptible via the pied gene.

I wish I knew if the amount of white in pieds varies between lines. You always hear that the amount of white in pieds is random but I've learned to be skeptical about any information (or lack there of) that involves marketability.

In hets the tendency to have the "ringer belly" seems to run in lines (some lines tend to show it in hets and some lines don't so I'm thinking the degree of susceptibility to ringerism (if there really is such a thing) is genetic, at least in het pieds. It might be the same in homozygous pieds. Not sure if it would actually be the pied gene that controls the degree ringerism or perhaps some other gene or genes.

I know this will never be done, but if one could put the whole clutch/incubator in a contraption that spins it, creating centripital accelloration (like the thing they use to test pilots resistance to G forces), thus pressing more of the snake on to the egg.

Hehe.