Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For example, can you successfully breed a NERD lemon pastel to a blond Matrix line pastel? How about Greg's line to a Rupel(sp?) line pastel?

I remember reading some time back that not all pastel lines were compatible, but I don't remember the details. All help / advice is appreciated.

BTW, I can't wait to see all the 2005 new morphs in Daytona!
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Alice Cobb

As of now...all lines are in fact compatible. It was only speculation that all were not compatible. Now no one has tried the enchi pastel with anything else....but I'm almost certain all have been bred with others and proved to be compatible.
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

So, are you saying that any line of pastel crossed with each other will produce a super pastel? Or will it act as a pastel bred to a normal? Therefore you end up with possibly two lines of pastel?

Thanks,
Louie

That means that if you breed a pastel to a pastel...you get supers...simple as that....
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Luke Martin
Bronze Serpent Reptiles

There is a big difference between compatability of recessive genes such as hypo and dominant genes such as pastel.

With a recessive gene you can breed a homo to a homo and see if all the resulting offspring are homo and not double het. An example of compatable is Green hypo x Orange hypo and SK Axanthic x VPI axanthic for incompatable.

With a dominant gene, the only way to know whether or not a gene is the same would be to breed the resulting "super" back to a normal and see if both lines appear. If both appear then the lines are different and NOT a result of some polygenic traits that have been line bred. Examples that has been done are the bumblebee or Phantom x Lesser lucy. I'm not sure whether or not Nerd has done this as they do claim that the lemon pastel is a different morph than the graziani pastel. If all the offspring are similar, then the lines are compatable and are the result of the same gene. I wonder whether or not the Butter might be the same as either the phantom or lesser...only time will tell.

The most reliable method is to breed a super pastel of one line to a super pastel of another line. All the babies have either a pair of pastel mutant genes (if compatible) or each pastel mutant gene is paired with its normal version (if the mutants are not compatible). Then take the babies and breed them to normals. If their babies include any normals, then the two mutant genes are not compatible. If there are 50 or more babies and all are pastel, then the odds are very high that the two pastel mutants are compatible.

Paul Hollander