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DNA sexing ?

Gazz Mar 05, 2005 02:12 PM

If wont to sex your parrot you just get a small blood sample from a claw send to a lab then thay tell you wether you have a male or female can the same be done reptiles this would make blue tongue breeding way easayer.

Replies (7)

Tigergenesis Mar 05, 2005 06:00 PM

Per the "bluey bible" (Blue-Tongued Skinks Contributions to Tiliqua and Cycldomorphus by Robert Hitz, Glenn Shea, Andree Hauschild, Klaus Henle & Heiko Werning), one possible problem is that while most birds possess sex chromosomes many lizards - including the Tiliqua species - lack sex chromosomes.
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aliceinwl Mar 05, 2005 07:09 PM

If skinks are like a lot of herps, sex is determined by things like temperature rather than genetics so males and females would not even be genetically different.
-Alice

Zachariah Mar 06, 2005 02:37 AM

Not to mention, it would probably be expensive!

What page is that on, Tiger?

Tigergenesis Mar 06, 2005 09:37 AM

.
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1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Bredl's Carpet Python "Strider"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
1.0 Saharan Sand Boa "Frodo"
0.1 California Kingsnake "Gentoo"
1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Indigo"
1.0 Snow Corn snake "Chile"
0.1 Okeetee Corn snake "Amazon"
1.0 Crested Gecko "Willow"
0.1 Irian Jaya BlueTongued Skink "Phoebe"
0.1 Indonesian BlueTongued Skink "Piper"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

whitneywee Mar 06, 2005 05:28 PM

I have a friend who has invested in an ultrasound machine for his ball pythons. I know it's the preferred sexing method for gilas. Does anyone know if it works for Blue tongues?

Tigergenesis Mar 06, 2005 06:43 PM

According to the bluey bible (again), ultrasound would only be able to detect a sexually mature female from immature females and males. That's because testes are not detectable by a sonography and the follicles on the ovaries of a female are only detectable if they are larger than 1 mm in diameter. So it's most useful in confirming a suspected pregnancy.
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Check out My Album

1.0 Ball Python "Aragorn"
1.0 Bredl's Carpet Python "Strider"
1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa "Gimli"
1.0 Saharan Sand Boa "Frodo"
0.1 California Kingsnake "Gentoo"
1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Indigo"
1.0 Snow Corn snake "Chile"
0.1 Okeetee Corn snake "Amazon"
1.0 Crested Gecko "Willow"
0.1 Irian Jaya BlueTongued Skink "Phoebe"
0.1 Indonesian BlueTongued Skink "Piper"
0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer "Kira"

jess b Mar 22, 2005 03:22 PM

Zoogen in Davis, CA offers Iguana DNA blood sexing (they do most of the parrots), but not any skink species. I looked into blood sexing for PTS, but to develop the test- they needed many thousands of dollars, plus samples from many known animals- I was not/still am not prepared to go to the expense to get this done- especially since there is no guarantee that a working test could even be created. Many reptiles do not have XY genetic equivalents.

The comment later on ultrasound is great- ultrasound can be a good tool- we can recognize follicles/ova in adult female PTS, and it can confirm a reproductively active female being such- but not very useful in a immature animal. I use it to count babies (one or two) in my female PTS.
jess b

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