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if i bred a 100% het lavender albino male into a 100% het albino female could i produce both lavender albinos and regular albinos

Try it and see, you could be the first. The only person that I know who has tried this is Ralph Davis, I think he tried it twice? And both times wound up with the eggs going bad, if I remember correctly. I always thought that it would be an intersting experiment though I doubt that the cross would be any more impressive then either of the parent morphs.

Mark

>>if i bred a 100% het lavender albino male into a 100% het albino female could i produce both lavender albinos and regular albinos

The first generation would look normal and be 50% probability heterozygous albino, 50% probability heterozygous lavender albino. Albinos and laverder albinos might turn up in the second generation or from backcrosses of the first generation to the parents.

Paul Hollander

Oops. I thought someone had done the cross. Thanks for the info, Mark. On the other hand, my answer is the most probable result. Most probable and certain are not the same thing of course.

Paul Hollander

Well, I know that he produced all normal looking double hets from crossing carmel albino to Lavender albino, but I'm pretty sure that the lavender albino X normal albino ended with bad clutches. I'll have to go through his birthing records again just to make sure.

>>Oops. I thought someone had done the cross. Thanks for the info, Mark. On the other hand, my answer is the most probable result. Most probable and certain are not the same thing of course.
>>
>>Paul Hollander

I heard that someone in Japan did the albino X lavender cross last year and produced all normals. I consider the source very reliable but of course it would be better if we could get direct info but that doesn't seem likely.

The cross which I haven't heard of being done yet is albino X caramel (RDR produced normals from lavender X caramel already). I've been waiting for years to hear on that one as if regular albino and caramel turned out to be alleles it would explain some breeding results from years ago.

Hey, I hear they finally figured out the full allele situation with motley and stripe in corn snakes, 15 years after the Color Guide first suggested it. With balls I suppose we should plan on waiting 30 years.

After talking to Ralph last year and found out that he got all bad eggs from visible to visible, I bred het lav. to 3 het albino females this past year. I got all good clutches. They all hatched with the last clutch hatching on Jan. 7.

I got all normal looking possible double hets from my pairings. I had 11 eggs. All the babies are healthy and doing great but no visibles.

To touch on the previous post. If they were to be compatible then we would see visibles in the first generation pairings. If you wait until the second generation pairings to see visibles this does not make the genes compatible. since you needed the the lavender gene to be present to produce visibles, They would in fact not be compatible.

Hope this helps,

Mike King
MK Reptiles
www.mkreptiles.com

Thanks, I didn't know anyone else had done this cross. So you got a total of 11 eggs from all three females? Did any of the eggs go bad? Did you get any slugs? I calculate that from a het to het breeding you should get about 1 in 4 that would be double het, 1 in 4 would be just het albino, 1 in 4 would be just het lavender albino and 1 in 4 would be normal (on average of course) Now the problem will be figuring out which is which. How many males and how many females did you get?

>>After talking to Ralph last year and found out that he got all bad eggs from visible to visible, I bred het lav. to 3 het albino females this past year. I got all good clutches. They all hatched with the last clutch hatching on Jan. 7.
>>
>>I got all normal looking possible double hets from my pairings. I had 11 eggs. All the babies are healthy and doing great but no visibles.
>>
>>To touch on the previous post. If they were to be compatible then we would see visibles in the first generation pairings. If you wait until the second generation pairings to see visibles this does not make the genes compatible. since you needed the the lavender gene to be present to produce visibles, They would in fact not be compatible.
>>
>>Hope this helps,
>>
>>Mike King
>>MK Reptiles
>>www.mkreptiles.com

I figure that the probability is 4.2% (1 in 24) that lavender albino and albino are alleles and that no visibles turned up just through the luck of the draw. Six more babies with no visibles would lower that probability to under 1%.

Paul Hollander

If they weren't compatible and you crossed an albino and a lavender albino then you would get normals which are 100% hets for albino and lavender albino. If they were compatible then you would get all albinos and you would have to grow them up to see if they started to change to lavenders or not.

I am willing to bet that the albinism gene could be seperate from the lavender gene and that if the mutation for albinos of both types deals with the same enzyme mutation, then you would still get albinos, but only some would be lavender. If that is the case then the lavender gene could be used in other morphs, as long as it is not on the same chromosome as the albino gene, which because no one has ever gotten a regular albino from a lavender clutch, is probably the case.
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1.21 ball pythons
1 speckled kingsnake
1 snapping turtle
1.0 argentine horned frog
1.1 English Bulldogs

>I am willing to bet that the albinism gene could be seperate from the lavender gene and that if the mutation for albinos of both types deals with the same enzyme mutation, then you would still get albinos, but only some would be lavender. If that is the case then the lavender gene could be used in other morphs, as long as it is not on the same chromosome as the albino gene, which because no one has ever gotten a regular albino from a lavender clutch, is probably the case.

Sorry, that does not follow. In the lab mouse, there is a mutant named albino that produces a nonfunctional tyrosinase enzyme. There are several other mutants (chinchilla, himalayan, etc.) that also produce abnormal tyrosinase. In other words, chinchilla, himalayan, albino, and the others produce different abnormal versions of the same enzyme. Chinchilla, albino, and the others are found at the same location on the same chromosome. A pure breeding stock of chinchilla mice is unlikely to produce an albino mouse because the chinchilla mutant gene would have to change to the albino mutant gene to do it. And the odds of that happening are something like 1 in 10,000.

IF albino and lavender albino produce different abnormal versions of the same enzyme, they would have the same location on the same chromosome, just like chinchilla and albino in the lab mouse. And a pure breeding stock of lavender albinos would have an extremely small chance of producing an albino.

Of course even if lavender albino and albino have the same location, lavender albino could substitute for albino in various multiple mutant morphs to produce a slightly different look. And snakes with a lavender albino gene paired with an albino gene might look more or less intermediate between the two. There is precedent for that sort of thing. But the odds are that lavender albino and albino mutants produce abnormal versions of different enzymes.

Paul Hollander

What I was saying is that

1. If they are a mutation of the same enzyme then they must be compatible. If the enzyme doesn't work, it doesn't matter why, just that it doesn't. And it would have to be at the same gene on the same chromosome.

2. If the biochemical pathway is nonfunctional in two different ways because of two different problems, then they would not produce albinos because the normal genes for both sides would still be present in one of the homologous chromosomes from the other animal.

3. It seems to me like the lavender gene is seperate from the albino gene because you are talking about two completely different traits here. The production of a lavender color is independent of the production of melanin. However, if the gene for the deficient enzyme in the production of melanin is on the same chromosome as the gene for the production of the lavender color then we will never be able to seperate them and prove that without some sort of crossing over mutation occuring in the right place, which would take a lot of luck.
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1.21 ball pythons
1 speckled kingsnake
1 snapping turtle
1.0 argentine horned frog
1.1 English Bulldogs

1. It is possible for two compatible mutant genes (alleles) to produce slightly different abnormal versions of the same enzyme. One enzyme may not work at all, and the other might work but not work as well as the normal version. This seems to be the reason for the different appearances of chinchilla and albino mice. We may not need to know the exact cause, but we should be able to recognize that the two alleles produce different effects.

2. Agreed.

3. I think that the only thing we can definitely say about albino and lavender albino is that they do not look the same. I think the odds are against the two mutants being alleles, but people buck the odds every day in lotteries, and some win big. So I will wait for experimental evidence either way.

I also think that the odds are against albino and lavender albino being linked. But even if the albino locus and the lavender albino locus are on the same chromosome, the two mutant genes have not yet been put on the same chromosome. From other posts in this thread, I get the inpression that there are now only approximately 20 ball pythons in the world (all neonates or juveniles) with any chance of possessing both the albino and lavender albino mutants. A crossover would have to occur in one of these snakes in order to get the two mutants on the same chromosome.

Crossovers happen; they take a little bit of luck and a lot of babies. But this particular one can't happen until a snake that possesses both the albino and lavender albino mutants breeds.

Paul Hollander

It has already been demonstrated this past year that the genes are not "compatible" (Mike Kings post above is one example)and also that they are not lethal when combined (as Ralphs experience with his two clutchs that went bad might suggest).
Before this year is over I think it will become abundantly clear (if it isn't already), that the albino and lavender albino genes in ball pythons are completely different. Further, I suspect that the lavender albino will ultimately prove to not really be a true albino in the "classical" sense as it does not have the red eyes indicative of true albinism. When it is all said and done I suspect that the lavender albino gene in ball pythons will turn out to behave the same or similarly to the "albino" gene in retics where you get a wide variation in the shade and degree of lavender that is expressed, from white all the way to very dark purple, with no red eyes. This kind of stuff is what makes breeding projects sooooo much fun!!
This should all be cleared up this year, but no matter how it ultimately turns out, the lavender is one of the most stunning morphs out there and offers some really interesting combination possibilites. We have all seen Ralph's dreamcicle, now think "Smurf" a.k.a. Super Cinnamon Lavender Albino!!
Cheers
Grant

Have to say that your understanding of a "lethal genetic disorder" is a little skewed.

Here are some definitions that are useful, first being a true definition of a lethal gene, second being a specific type of lethal that causes zygotic development to cease, and this is what most people view all lethals as being.

"genetic lethal
n.
A disorder that prevents effective reproduction by those affected, such as Klinefelter syndrome."
-from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/genetic lethal

"Lethal gene, zygotic: A gene that is lethal (fatal) for the zygote, the cell formed by the union of a sperm (male sex cell) and an ovum (female sex cell). The zygote would normally develop into an embryo, as instructed by the genetic material within the unified cell. However, a zygotic lethal gene scotches prenatal development at its earliest point.

A zygotic lethal gene is a mutated (changed) version of a normal gene essential to the survival of the zygote. The extent of the mutation can range from a change in a single base in the DNA to deletion (loss) of the entire gene."
-Taken from http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7753

So, in case you missed the difference, or where to lazy to read, a lethal gene is one that causes carriers to fail to reproduce, usually expiring before sexual maturity, where as a "Zygotic" lethal gene would cause abortion of the zygote.

Also, it is very hard to tell distinctly what is going on in these types of situations, with every breeding dramatically changing our view of what is going on, whether reinforcing our previous views, or demolishing them and giving us a new hypothesis. But, until there are more than 25-30 breedings done with these two genes, we aren't going to have an accurate reading at all as to what is going on. Proof of this is the difference of Randy's calculations regarding non-compatibility written above, just one more clutch of all normals dramatically changes the probability, so I say it is still to early to know, and hopefully people keep dinking around with this project.

-Dan