Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why do those of you that feel Mojave & Lessers are the same morph, feel that way? Is it because they both are capable of throwing blue eyed Leucistic, or because their patterns are very similar? Vin Russo's Lemon Ball's throw leucistics, does that mean you think they are also the same morph as the Lessers/Mojaves? Pastels have a typical pattern like any normal, does this mean all normals are able to produce a pastel (some normal's coloration rivals that of some pastels also)?

Mojave coloration varies alot. Does the Lessers coloration vary much, (not from what I've seen)?

Has anybody ever produced babies from a Mojave & one of its normal offspring and did it throw a Platty Daddy?

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to start crap this time, just want some honest opinions.

Thankyou,
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Chad Bachman

Honest opinion. I think that the mojave, lesser and butter are all along the same gene allele. Not saying that they are all the same snakes at all but they are in some genetic way related through pattern, mutation and other ways not yet known.

I agree that the lesser has produced the platty daddy or whatever (I cant keep up with all of them to be honest) but all of the crosses I'VE seen so far really dont do anyting for me. I.E. Pastel mojave, lesser pastel, etc....so it leads me to believe that when mixed with other morphs or actually other co-dom or dominant morphs it may have a very weak effect. Hopefully when some of the other simple recessive genes are crossed into them we see some real change.

In my honest opinion I haven't really seen anything that makes these snakes that much in price difference for me personally but a difference in color and I dont think its that drastic. Almost all of them besides a butter ( correct me if I'm wrong)produce a blue eyed white snake. And mixed into other things I havent seen anything which would make me want to pay 50k for one and over look another that is for sale for 10k.....Just my two cents and an honest OPINION. Hope this helps ... P.S. I dont think this way because I have a mojave and not a lesser either....both are gorgeous snakes.

Mike Brooks
TNS Reptiles
Long Island,NY
631-732-4233

I agree 100%, though NOT the same mojave,lessers,phantoms,etc all do appear to be very closely related.If you see a darker lesser and a light mojave{like the one Markus Jane posted a few threads below} they are virtually the same. And the fact that they both produce blue-eyed lucy`s... well what does that tell you.I think lessers are due for a MAJOR price adjustment,how can there be such a price discrepancy? I see lessers in the $12k-$15K this season. Why pay more{triple,quadruple}for a lesser when you can achieve the same end result with a mojave???? It`ll be interesting to see what happens with this market in 05. Best wishes, Mark

Last time I said Butters look like Lessers, I was told by just about everyone on this forum that I have no clue what I'm talking about....LOL..

Anyway, thanks for the reply.
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Chad Bachman

Bob Clark site has lesser/butter as one type of animal. I thought this was interesting since I also think something is going on with the lessers/phantoms/mojaves/butters and such all have so many features that are similar and produce blue eye lucy's. Oh well time will tell.
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Nita Hamilton
4.13 Normal BP's, 1.0 Het Orange Ghost BP, 1.0 Het Pied 1.0 50% poss Het Orange Ghost BP's

I believe Phantoms are Mojaves, always have. The Lesser's & Butter's look very similar to me, but I don't think they are the same morph.

Time will tell I guess. Everything is throwing white snakes these days...LOL.
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Chad Bachman

From what Ralph said at Tinley, he thought Phantoms were Mojaves, but the Sutherlands insisted they were not mojaves. A lot of questions posted here, could be answered just by reading Ralphs journal. Bob Clark posted one animal as a butter/platinum I believe....read Ralphs journal, I know he talks about this. Bob has done a ton for reptiles in general, but the lucy producing animals are not his "baby", so to speak. Take care

Paul

SK actually clears all this Phantom/Mojave stuff up on there site.
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Chad Bachman

Personally, I think they resemble each other. The lesser and mojave that is. I don't think they're identical, just have resemblances. I also see a pattern mutation as well as some color, not simply a color morph such as pastels. If the mojave and lessers are the same, then they may be similar to pastels in that respect. There are some ugly pastels, and some that are extremely nice. They all produce pastels though. Your question about Mojave to a sibling producing Platty daddys got me thinking though. From what I know, which isn't much...platty daddy produced the lessers. So, if platty daddy has another trait that was recessive, it would make some sense that the lessers COULD BE lesser het platty daddys "other trait", and the "normals" just het platty daddys "other trait". That could explain why the mojave to normal sibling offspring doesn't produce platty daddys. So, is the original platty daddy say a hypo lesser or something similar to that? What happens from two normal appearing lesser siblings bred together? Is that known yet? If not, could it be a hypo type animal without the pattern of the lesser? Right now, all of us are arguing opinion though as far as what one looks like compared to the other...you say they don't, I say they do...neither of us are right if we're talking OPINION. When those with the animals can figure it all out, then we can have legit debates. Everything until then is just differing opinions. Take care

This is very true. Hope we find out this season. Thanks David

I think you are right about Platy being a lesser that is also homozygous for a separate gene. I'm calling that gene dilute after a rat gene I once found documented that would wash out color mutations but had no effect on the normal rat color. There are actually a bunch of different rat dilute genes and I'm not sure if they all work this way but I once found a page that documented one of them working that way.

RDR has breed normal looking platy offspring together 5 times and produced 24 offspring - all of which where classified as normals. Per this theory all offspring (normal looking or lesser) of the platy should be het dilute. Out of 24 babies from normal looking het dilute pairs there should have been some that are homozygous dilute. So it looks like the dilute gene that turns a lesser into a platy doesn't do anything major to a normal.

However I would be interested to know if being het dilute has any effect on lessers. All the lesser offspring of platy X normal would be het dilute. However, if you bred one of those lessers to a normal only half of the next generation lessers would be het dilute (assuming lesser and dilute aren't linked by being on the same chromosome - that possibility gets more complicated). If being het dilute was causing the first generation lessers to be brighter than mojaves then some of the 2nd generation lessers that aren't het dilute should be more mojave looking. I haven't heard any evidence of a distinct variation in lightness of the 2nd generation lessers so it may not be the dilute gene that makes lessers tend to be lighter than mojaves but it's a possibility to keep on the lookout for.

Randy, you definitely have a better insight on these animals than I do, and I enjoy reading your posts. Thanks for the info, take care!

Paul

Very interesting, I appreciate you sharing your genetic experience.It will be interesting to see if there`s a variance with each new generation of lessers. Mark

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Chad Bachman

Chad, all my normals can produce Pastels. How do you think I produced so many?

LOL....I meant normal to normal breedings.

BTW, the Pastel I got from you is doing great, never refused a meal for me yet.
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Chad Bachman