Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Say if I have a male double het and a female double het of any given species and I breed them, what is produced? Het X het? etc...
I have no idea how this all works.

Thanks
Eric

Say you have a male kingsnake, which is amelanistic and het for ghost.

And a female kingsnake, which is het for amel.

If you breed those, the babies would come out either all albino or a mix of albinos and normals. The normals would be het for ghost and amel, therefore, double hets.

Breed the het babies to each other when they are adults, and you will get a mix of amels and ghosts.
Michael

Hope that helped a little

Michael's Place

-----
Michael_Fedzen@hotmail.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

It's very late, and i'm on excess doses of cold medicine but I don't think that's quite right. Others here on the forum are welcome to correct me. Here's what i think:

"ghost" is a term usually applied to the double-morph comprising hypo and anerythristic (in pyros, corns, honduran milksnakes, etc.) There may be a single-recessive cal king mutation that someone named "ghost" but it's the exception to the "rule"--that is, to the more general naming conventions.

Unless you're talking about that exception-to-the-rule, an amel "het for ghost" (double het for hypo and anerythristic) bred X a female het amel, would produce babies half of which would be amel and half of which would be het for amel, and all of those babies would, each, have a 50% chance of being het for hypo and a 50% chance of being het for anerythristic.

If you're talking about the cal king exception-to-the-rule, then half the babies would be amels, half would be het amels, and all of those babies would, each, have a 50% chance of being het for ghost.

Because of the confusion caused by calling a single-recessive morph a "ghost" i think the getula community would be better served if someone came up with a better name for it, something descriptive and consistent with other naming conventions.

terry
==============
>>Say you have a male kingsnake, which is amelanistic and het for ghost.
>>
>>And a female kingsnake, which is het for amel.
>>
>>If you breed those, the babies would come out either all albino or a mix of albinos and normals. The normals would be het for ghost and amel, therefore, double hets.
>>
>>Breed the het babies to each other when they are adults, and you will get a mix of amels and ghosts.
>>Michael
>>
>>Hope that helped a little
>>
>>Michael's Place
>>
>>-----
>>Michael_Fedzen@hotmail.com
>>www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
>>

needs to be changed. To much confusion.

I will second that! I believe Ball Python Ghosts are also in this category? Tom Stevens

Call them Spectres.
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Lloyd Heilbrunn

Palm Beach Gardens, Fl.

and it is easy to remember[and pronounce]. Tom

but that was what they were advertised and sold as. If I had made a new name for them, then there would be confusion as to there origin.

I proper name is due.

Kerby...

when you breed het to het you produce POSSIBLE hets double or what ever.However the Homo(showing trait)bred to het or normal produce all hets. in other words the homozygus animal should be included in pairing so after 2-3 years you accomplish a goal.but then again you can breed poss. hets and still accomplish your goal. that kinda simplifies it i think .Chris

>>when you breed het to het you produce POSSIBLE hets double or what ever

actually, het x het produces 1/4 homozygous, 2/4 hets and 1/4 normal (no gene for the morph)...the latter two types can't be distinguished so you're right, we refer to them as possible hets. but you get homozgyous AND poss hets. (the same is true for breeding double het x double het--you get the same proportions as above for EACH of the two traits the animal's het for, but some of them "overlap"--they occur on the same animal. So double het for snow, for example (het for albino and for anerythristic) will produce 1/4 albinos, but 1/4 of those will also be anery and thus snows, etc.)

>>.However the Homo(showing trait)bred to het or normal produce all hets.

homozygous x het = babies half of which are homozygous and half of which are het, homozygous x normal, you're right, produces all hets.

terry

i didnt know the percentages,i do realize that there is a hidden het gene in SOME of the normal looking off spring and that a homo should appear in some of het x het(ie poss het)and you say getting a double homo from dh x dh is 1 in 16, and het x het is 1 in 4 thanks for the refresher,Chris

Double het x Double het will give the following results as long as both are double het foe the same recessive genes. Example a male double het (het for amelanistic and het for anerythristic) x a female double het (het for amelanistic and het for anerythristic.
Out of 16 eggs.
1 Snow (showing amel and anery)
3 amel (2 out of 3 or 66% will be het for anery)
3 anery (2 out of 3 or 66% will be het for amel)
9 normal appearing hatchlings. ( 4 double het, 2 het amel, 2 het anery, 1 not het)

I think all the previous responses are confusing or incomplete or both.

Best advice I can give a genetics newbie is to to buy a genetics text and study it. Schaum's Introduction to Genetics, by Elrod and Stansfield (4th ed., 2002, paper cover) is around $16 from Amazon. Last month there were a couple of copies at the local Half Price Books store for $8. I like it's problem-solving approach.

BTW, relying on a snake genetics web site is about as safe as picking flowers in a mine field.

Paul Hollander

When I called the other posts in this thread incomplete and confusing, I did not mean any disrespect to the posters. In fact my hat is off to them because they tried. I recommended a textbook because the original, simple question requires a huge and complex answer. IMHO, a complete answer written in words that a genetics newbie would understand would require at least five thousand words. And diagramming a few Punnett squares would help. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan put together couldn't do that in an hour.

Paul Hollander

Paul, I like your advice. Genetics is not as simple as some of the posters think. One thing is certain, no crosses give results of 66%. You are dealing with orders of two. You can get 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 etc. You are also talking about odds and not about breeding results. There is also a thing called linkage that can change results. You have to know if there is linkage between pairs on genes.

Here is a link to an article called "Color Anomalies in Snakes." It is worth a read.
Color Anomalies in Snakes