Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know of a genetics for dummies type website. I can sort of understand it a little bit. The whole square thing, and pairing them up. What I don't get is all of the names, and mutations. The one I am most facinated with is the piebald. But I would really like to sit down and learn all of the basics so i can understand what people are talking about. Also, if I ever decided to breed either of my snakes, I would know what to expect and could sit down and figure it out. Can somebody explain to me what het and hypo means. I think both of my snakes are completely normal bred, no special genes at all. What would that make them? Thanks for your input.

Also, is there such a thing as albino Dumeril's, and does the piebald gene exist outside of ball pythons, and how did they create the piebald gene?

You best bet is to get a good genetics text and learn the basics from that. Then apply what you've learned to snakes. One of the best bangs for the buck is Elron and Stansfield's text, "Schaum's Introduction to Genetics". I got the third edition around 8 years ago and like its problem oriented format. A used copy of the 4th edition in paperback costs less than $10, the last time I priced them.

A snake without abnormal (AKA "special" ) genes is a normal snake.

"Het" is short for "heterozygous". A gene pair is heterozygous if the two genes in the pair are not the same. Examples: a pastel mutant gene paired with a normal gene (in ball pythons) or an albino mutant gene paired with a normal gene (in ball pythons). A snake is heterozygous if it has a gene pair that is heterozygous.

A gene pair is homozygous if the two genes in the gene pair are the same. Examples: two albino mutant genes, two normal genes.

Some people will tell you that a het snake looks normal. This is true only if the mutant gene is recessive to its normal version. It is not true if the mutant gene is dominant or codominant to the normal version of the gene. But that leads into a discussion of recessive, dominant, and codominant mutant genes.

"Hypo" is short for "hypomelanistic". Hypomelanistic snakes have some black pigment (melanin) but less than a normal snake. Hypomelanistic is the name of a single mutant gene in several species. In boa constrictors, there are several mutant genes that reduce the amount of black pigment, but none is named hypo. The boa mutant that is most commonly meant by "hypo" was formally named "salmon".

I do not know whether there is an albino Dumeril's boa.

Nobody created the ball python piebald mutant gene. It just happened sometime over in Africa. One or a few piebald ball pythons were caught in Africa and bred in captivity. All the rest are the founders' descendents.

Hope this helps.

Paul Hollander

I am a novice and have only been involved for a little less then a year. This whole genetics thing is way over my head. However,it is the reason I decided to get involved.

I have met many nice folks that are more than willing to help, I am sure you will have the same experience. Here is a link to the NERD site genetics 101...enjoy

Buddy Young
0.2 DH Sunglows
0.1 Coral Albino
1.0 Normal Het stripe line Coral Albino
1.0 Anery
0.1 Anery
Genetics 101