Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got to thinking the other day about how morphs are actually created. Obviously there is an abnormality or normality which leads to either abnormal pattern, color, etc..

The thing that started me thinking was the ebony ball. That snake looks very similar to the genetic stripe, obviously a differnt color though. Created by a yellow belly!

So now I'm thinking that possibly that the ebony is in fact simple recessive and was infact created by the abnormality in the affected IE yellow belly gene. In turn creating a simple recessive snake (Like the genetic stripe) that can only be re-created by one of its own offspring or itself. Making the animal 100% simple recessive without being able to be re-created without another animal of the same genetic make-up or an actual yellow belly itself.

Basically,
What if most of the simple recessive animals we know of stripe, clown, axanthic, etc....were created by a yellow belly bred to something in the wild I.E. a granite, whatever.

We've seen what Jared and Amir have done with the yellow belly. Is it a possibility that the yellow belly did in fact create many of the morphs we know today? It would give us an answer to where our morphs actually come from. If this thinking is too far ahead let me know, LOL

I'm at work but I cant wait to hear some of your thoughts on this guys, Give us all something to think about for the day......Thanks Mike

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

I'll need a few more cups of coffee before I can mentally digest it.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Cool creative thinking.....who knows. I know this...people will cross the Yellow Belly with every morph on the planet...because they are like a box of chocolates....you know the rest.
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Jim Perron
Python Passion Reptiles
pythonpassion@hotmail.com
www.pythonpassionreptiles.com

I doubt that many of the wild morphs stem from the Yellow Belly influence, however it may be possible. It seems the Yellow Belly has pleiotropic effects (influences other non-related genes) when crossed with various morphs...much like the Cinnamon or Mojave (etc) seem to have these effects.

(Example: Super Cinnamon has a deformed head. The Cinnamon gene may be indirectly influencing the gene(s) for skull structure.)

Personally I believe that the label of "codominant" does not apply here. These animals are most likely pleiotropic by design and clearly do not fit into either of the three (dominant, codominant, or incomplete dominant) traditional dominant type categories. This would suggest a fourth dominant type category. Perhaps a label of "chaotic dominance" would be more appropriate here.

Regardless...as my first year Biology professor use to tell me..."Keep asking the hard questions!"

Chris
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“The problem with the Ball Python market rests in the advertisement of true morphs versus pseudo-morphs. Many people are simply taking Normal animals for Granite." – CJBianco

How can the ebony then be recessive????

Jared

That's what makes it so fascinating jared, lol. The possibility of the creation of a new gene? Really, how much have ball python genetics been studied? Granted we can base assumptions on what we know from human, and other genetic testing. But honestly how much ball python testing involing mutations with color, pattern etc...have really been done.......Not much.

The only way for something like this to occur is if the two genes are allelic (i.e. on the same locus in the genome). Then there might be a really stange crossover that occurs early in developement that creates a new gene (a chimera of gene 1 and gene 2). However, this type of event would be unlikely at best and would not produce a recessive gene, but a gene with similar dominance as the original two genes (this is primarily dependent on the WT gene and its function). Genes at different loci rarely affect other genes in terms of their sequence, although there are viruses and transposable elements that have been known to do this. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an example of where one gene affected another gene's sequence, let alone many other gene sequences. Unless YB is caused by some sort of transposable element that moves around and causes other problems in other genes (which is very unlikely since it appears to be codominant and heritable), this theory doesn't hold much water. Just my thoughts.