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Call me old fashioned but I'm not sure I understand the genetics behind all of this. Until recently I thought all hypomelanism was a recessive traight, but now I am seeing ads for possible dominants?!?!?!? "Salmons" are said to be co-donminant and the offspring of a salmon x salmon are super salmons which I see labeled as possibly dominant. I think the idea of two co-dominant traits working out in the punnet square like a heterozygous trait creating homozygous dominant individuals is a load of crap. I have bred arabesques to arabesques and still gotten 50-50 ratios, give or take a few.

Oh, and if anyone has a co-dominant hypo ad female or knows someone who does let me know. Hypo arabesques?? sounds yummy

>>Call me old fashioned but I'm not sure I understand the genetics behind all of this. Until recently I thought all hypomelanism was a recessive traight, but now I am seeing ads for possible dominants?!?!?!? "Salmons" are said to be co-donminant and the offspring of a salmon x salmon are super salmons which I see labeled as possibly dominant. I think the idea of two co-dominant traits working out in the punnet square like a heterozygous trait creating homozygous dominant individuals is a load of crap. I have bred arabesques to arabesques and still gotten 50-50 ratios, give or take a few.
>>
>>Oh, and if anyone has a co-dominant hypo ad female or knows someone who does let me know. Hypo arabesques?? sounds yummy

Do you have pictures of the ArabXArab litter, that would be great to see.. As far as the genetic hypomelanistic strain in Colombian boas, they ALL work in a co dominant nature... You really need to understand, the famous words of my friend Davey Giltner... MOTHER NATURE DOESN'T USE A PUNNET SQUARE!!!! Which is definitely displayed in the litter my female just dropped... Co dom male hypo X Normal female = 43 babies and only TEN hypos.. That's a 1/4 of the litter... And on the other hand, you could possibly end up with 3/4 hypos, or whichever trait you're breeding... The punnet square is only a guideline to help forecast the litter you're trying to produce.. It's not a natural LAW..
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Joe Lydon
Got Boids?

I agree with you there! The punnet square are just guide lines for use to see the possible outcome and usually will be close, but if you go to ralph davis website he breed two dh snows and he got 4 snows out of 16 in that one litter. Sometimes it's a good thing that mother nature works in unpredictable ways. Just thought I'd like to share that. 8)
take care,
JAKE ~~~~~~~~

The definition of "co-dominant",it more closely fits the definition of "dominant",because there is no clear definative visual distinction between het. & homo.that can be regarded as consistant within a reasonable degree of variance,or,reliability.every single genetic trait produces a heterozygous & a homozygous representation in its expression. this applies to dominant traits as well as recessive ones,and,includes what we call "hypos" in boas.(It's interesting to note that in all other species of animals that I'm aware of,in which genetic hypomelanism has been isolated & proven,it is always recessive? it is usually manifested like an incomplete form of albinism,and,looks nothing like what we see in salmon & orange-tail boas.)anyway,Punnett's Square was invented by human beings,if it didn't have any relavence,we wouldn't use it,it is a way to calculate the probable outcome once we know the transmissive nature of the trait we are testing.the reason that we somtimes get numbers that don't match our P.square calculations,has to do with statistical odds.If we breed a heterozygous albino to a non-gene carrier,and,use the square to calculate the outcome,we see that the entire litter has a 50% possibility of inheriting the trait,this doesn't mean that if you get a litter of 30,that 15 are guaranteed to be hets,it's just a calculation based on how we understand the trait to work...we don't say "My het. for albino is co-dominant,because it results in a 50/50 split when bred to a normal." ,we already know that the trait is recessive! when we refer to co-dominant & dominant forms of "hypos"and,the trait proves itself though breeding results to be dominant,we are using two different genetic lables to describe two forms of a single mutation,which is just plain old "wrong",doesn't matter if you refuse to call an F1 hypo a het,or,not..."a co-dom" is still incorrect,just like it would be to call a het albino a "co-dom",or,insist that the color "green" is really just blue with the yellow removed...

All I can add to the above post is that there are many ways to produce animals that are lighter in color than normal. FWIW, andalusian in chickens is caused by a codominant mutant gene that produces "blue" birds when heterozygous and combined with an independent black mutant. AFAIK, palomino in horses is caused by a codominant mutant. And there are other more or less dominant mutants that lighten the color in other species. So salmon is not unique.

Paul Hollander

Thanks for the input. actually,"it" may indeed be "unique" for the simple fact that it doesn't seem to have a clear parallel in any other species that we commonly draw comparative conclusions from,whereas,"amelanism"(T neg.)for example,has a "universal" characteristic that can be seen in many other species."true hypomelanism" though somewhat variable,can also have the same universiality....comparatively speaking,a true"hypo" boa "should" look much more like the expression we see in some sub-adult/adult examples of tyrosinase positive "albinos",and,be recessive in its transmissive behavior...I would certainly agree that what we all currently accept as "hypo" in B.c.ssp. does result in a reduction of melanin,however,I've always felt that there is room,(at least in my mind )for the discovery,and,subsequent isolation of a recessive form of traditional "hypomelanism" that more closely mirrors what has been found in other species of animals.*(?)*

A Salmon trait is not recessive at all. If you had bred a Salmon to a normal boa then you would not have any Salmons in the litter unless the other boa carried the gene, this doesn’t happen. With the Salmon morph you will always get Salmons in the litter. If you bred 2 Arabesque boas together and drew a Punnet Square of your breeding you would find that you would produce possible Super Arabesque, however the only way to prove out if the animal was super would be to raise it and breed it. A Super Salmon or Super Arabesque is an animal in which both alleles contain the Salmon or Arabesque trait. Hope this helps.

If you wish information on Salmons, you should go to "the man". Both Rich and John at SalmonBoa.com are extremely helpful and have given me a better understanding of the morph. I'm sure they may do the same for you. Here is a little taste of some of my Salmons. You think Salmon-Arabesque boas look good..... you should check out the Jungle-Salmons.

Are incorrectly termed as "Supers". The traits are dominant. Not co-dominant. If they were co-dom traits then supers would not have to be proven, they would be instantly visibly identifiable in a litter. Spread the word......

That should have read Homozygous hypos and Arabesques....