I know one egg looks generally like the next, but this is one of this year's clutches with more potential than others, perhaps historic potential. They could produce the first known hybino honduran, or even the first known triple homozygous.
The four eggs are from a male hypo honduran that's also het albino and het anery, bred x a female hypo het albino 50% chance het anery.
Based on the definite hypo/albino genotype, 1/4 of the babies from this clutch would be definite hybinos--they'd be the ones that look like albinos (the whole clutch is hypo, so any albino is hypo too; those that aren't visual albinos will be hypos 2/3 of which will be het/albino). To the best of my knowledge, any hybinos from this clutch would be the first KNOWN hybinos. It's possible someone else has a clutch laid earlier this season that could give us the same insight, or has bred a possible hybino in a way that results this year might prove it to be a hybino. I've got a test of that sort underway this year myself (see below).
A little background on why this clutch matters: I've produced several dozen albinos that had 25% chance of being hypo as well, and thus hybinos. So statistically, there are probably at least half a dozen hybinos around. But we don't know how to tell them apart from the albinos that are not hypo (there are several hypotheses). Once DEFINITE hybinos are produced, such as this clutch could yield, maybe we'll be able to see visual differences that will enable us to go back and distinguish those other hybinos as well--I test-bred one last year that turned out NOT to be a hybino, and have test-bred another this year that we'll see the results of in a month or so, and i have two more possibles to test next year.
The results of this clutch could be even more exciting in another way:
IF the female IS het anery like the male--and there's a 50% chance that's the case--then 1/16 of the babies would look generally like snows and might be the world's first triple-homozygous hondurans. Again, someone else may have a similar clutch laid earlier this year, but that's less likely--i know there are some hypos het/albino out there that i and one or two others produced a couple years ago, but i'm not sure there are other hypos het/albino AND het/anery. OF course, the odds are against me on this one: only a 50% chance the female has the necessary genotype, and even if she does, only one out of 16 babies would be a tirple homozygous.
It's also possible one or more triple homozygous have been produced before--any snow-phenotype produced from triple hets COULD be a triple-homozygous, for example. That's because 1/4 of the babies from triple hets would be hypos, so arguable 1/4 of the snows produced from triple het x triple het breedings would be triple-homozygous. But there's no way we know of to distinguish a snow from a triple homozygous. Again, seeing an animal that HAS to be triple homozygous, as would be the case of any snow from the clutch of eggs in this post, might lead us to visual clues to distinguish triple-homozygous animals from snows.
I also have 3-4 good eggs from an earlier clutch from this same male x a hypo female that has 2/3 chance of being het/albino. So IF she is het/albino, and the odds are that she is, then that earlier clutch could produce the first definite hybino.
And i have one more female, a hypo DEF het albino AND def het anery, to try. She seemed to be gravid but didn't lay, so was one of those mysterious "resorbed"/was merely ovulating/ate her eggs females. I'm hoping she'll cycle again and lay later this year as she's the only hypo female i have that's DEF het for the other two morphs.
It's the stuff that makes watching clutches hatch especially exciting.
peace
terry
the male:
the female:
