Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Like the locale of the original, who developed the line, etc.

PS- The 1st hunting trip of the year is planned, we will be leaving for West Texas next Friday, hopefully I will bring back some cool pictures.
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Derek Moynihan
Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

It's been posted a couple of times here in the past. The original breeder (Gary Ballam) even posted the story once or twice. I don't remember the exact wording, but I'm sure you can find it with the search fundtion.

They were NOT kept locality pure, though. I still have concerns about the purity. It might have been collected, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an escape or something.

Thanks for the response, I searched the archives for '05 and '04 and did not find anything.....I'll go further back next time. When you say you have concerns about the lineage do you mean about the locale the original was collected or concerns about wether it is pure bullsnake or mixed with a pine, gopher, etc?
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Derek Moynihan
Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

>>Thanks for the response, I searched the archives for '05 and '04 and did not find anything.....I'll go further back next time. When you say you have concerns about the lineage do you mean about the locale the original was collected or concerns about wether it is pure bullsnake or mixed with a pine, gopher, etc?

Go back further. I'd guess around '02. It was definitely posted in the old forums here. Look up Omaha, too. They might have come from near Omaha. Vague memory. Like I said, they weren't bred true, so the locality never really interested me.

My coincern is over purity. The story checks out (and I did look into it deep), but COMPLETELY unverified. Timing, etc. makes it look pure, but blotch counts (of the hets, etc.) are extremelyt low. Higher than pinesnakes, but still on the VERY low end for bullsnakes. Body shape is reminiscnet more of pines than bulls in SOME cases, etc.

No proof either way, but enough to be suspicious. Mr. Ballam may not have any idea that they aren't pure (if in fact they aren't), but like I said, I have suspects that the original WC may not have been a pure bullsnake. It wouldn't be the first time an excape was recaptured in a wierd place......

KJ

Hi Guys,
The patternless trait observed in S. Pines is co-dominant in inheritance. The Ballam line patternless is simple recessive in inheritance This makes it extemely unlikely that the patternless bulls are the result of a cross with a S. pine. The patternless bulls are also much more heavy bodied than a typical gopher. As KJ mentioned, the original male was wild caught outside of Omahah NE. He was not kept locality pure and there now exists many patternless morphs with his genetics. Josh

>>Hi Guys,
>>The patternless trait observed in S. Pines is co-dominant in inheritance.

Well, that isn't completely true. If it were, then hets would all look identifiable from double homozygous normals and pattenless. This is ONBIOUSLY not the case. Work with them some more, and you'll find that in some cases it acts as a simple dominant in Florida pines, but it can also act like a simple recessive in other cases. Some times, you get the mixed which would kinda sound like an incomplete dominant (but this isn't that common), and sometimes it just makes no dang sense at all! (All of those possibilities are ruled out when you breed 2 patternless together and don't EVER get any patternless from them. Geez. I've got my theories on this, too, but they've been explained in large detail before on this forum already.

The above was just to Florida (aka southern) pinesnakes and the patternless gene.

By the way, handle some F1 bull X pine crosses. They are MUCH girthier than the pines and have low (bullsnake-normal) body blotch counts. At least most of the ones I've seen fit in this group. I've never done such a scummy cross myself, of course.

KJ

Hi KJ,
You have some valid points concerning the patternless trait as observed with S. pines. The inheritence of the patternless trait does appear to be co-dominant at times and incomplete dominant other times. The normal phase appears to behave as simple recessive at times as well. It is frustrating to catagorize. Perhaps it can be summerised that the patternless trait in S. pines is multifactorial or at least not recessive and does not behave according to traditional mendelian rules.
Either way, in patternless bullsnakes, the patternless trait does behave as simple recessive. I find it unlikely that a cross between a patternless S. pine with a non recessive patternless trait and a bullsnake would produce bulls with a patternless trait that behaves as simple recessive. Does this sound reasonable?
Josh

Thanks for all the great info guys, I will do some investigating on my own as well and will post if I come up with anything.

PS- My hunting trip went great, plenty of atrox and collared lizards, a few coachwhips, a splendida, and a viridis.......no pits though. I would post pics but I don't think it would go over very well on this forum.
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Derek Moynihan
Fat, Flat Lizard Ranch

>>Hi KJ,
>>You have some valid points concerning the patternless trait as observed with S. pines. The inheritence of the patternless trait does appear to be co-dominant at times and incomplete dominant other times. The normal phase appears to behave as simple recessive at times as well. It is frustrating to catagorize. Perhaps it can be summerised that the patternless trait in S. pines is multifactorial or at least not recessive and does not behave according to traditional mendelian rules.
>>Either way, in patternless bullsnakes, the patternless trait does behave as simple recessive. I find it unlikely that a cross between a patternless S. pine with a non recessive patternless trait and a bullsnake would produce bulls with a patternless trait that behaves as simple recessive. Does this sound reasonable?
>>Josh

Well, I'm still not sure about that, but you DO bring up a valid point. We all know hoe much natural intergrading goes on between southern and Northern pinesnakes. We can only guess how much man-m,ade hybridization goes on between the two,m but it has been high in the past. Once a hybrid, ALWAYS a hybrid, no matter how many generations later.

This has been covered in more detail, so I'll keep it brief. Let's pretend that there are 3 alleles at the gene loci controlling the pattern on the "southern pinesnakes:" 1) the patternless gene, 2) the normal pattern originating from southern pinesnakes, and 3) the normal pattern originating from the northern pinesnake. 1 could be dominant to 2 but recessive to 3 (or vice versa). 2/3 could look 2/2 or 3/3 OR it could be the "odd patterns" we see that are neither really blotched or patternless. OR 1 could be only incompletely dominant to 2 but dominat to 3, or the same could be true except recessive instead of dominant.

This wouldn't be an unheard of case in the animal world. It would explain a lot, wouldn't it? The data so far as I know does NOT disprove this theory. It can't prove it, either, but it does answer most, if not all, of the known facts. Just something to keep in mind as a possibility.

Now, if the southern pinesnake patternless gene was completely recessive to the bullsnake normal-pattern gene like it is to 2 or 3 above, you would see what we are seeing without the confusing facts since the cross was only done, theoretically, once.

Too many people assume that a recessive is ALWAYS a recessive and that only two alleles are possible for each loci. Not true. A good comparison would the the striped/motely/botched pattern in conrnsnakes.