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I have seen several ads recently in the classifieds section listing striped Kenyans for sale. A couple of these referred to the striping as a morph and even called the gene codominant. Maybe I have missed something but my understanding was that these were made by crossing a rufescen locality with a normal Kenyan. Calling it a codominant morph just because it expresses itself in the offspring would seem to misconstrue that this is really the product of hybridizing two localities at best and possibly two potential subspecies at worst. Though not currently recognized as a unique form, there does seem to be some significant differences between rufescens and Kenyans besides color. Rufescens are smaller and typically breed much later, commonly producing litters in Feb. I realize not everyone is a purist when it comes to breeding different localities, but in this case it would seem that these striped babies should at least be called Kenyan/rufescens crosses when advertised. Calling it a codominant morph would be akin to me saying I am het for German or Polish.
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Rick Staub

Well, I think that the jury is still out on what is going.

That said, I also think the weight of the evidence thus far is that the striping is at least a dominant trait to the normal Kenyan pattern and is perhaps co-dominant to something else in the Ruffie's. I think we can rule out incomplete dominance since breeding stripe to stripe does not seem to give a "super" form.

There is a post about this from a few weeks ago titled: 25% rufescens litter by CBH on Aug 22, 2010

As for the Ruffie being its own species or sub-species, that might be true but I've seen little evidence either way. They are different as you said, but so are humans, and there is often more morphological variation within species than between. If anyone out there has a "pure" not out-crossed ruffie that they are willing to send me a shed skin of I will test it though. Its a pretty simple thing for me to sequence one of the genes commonly used in testing how different Kenyans and Ruffies are (I work in an evolutionary genetics lab). Any takers????

Actually this may be a good chance to gather all the breeding info and see where we are in terms of figuring out the genetics. If anyone has bred Ruffies and wants to share the results post it. If there is enough data I can run a statistical test of the various possibilities and we can come to a preliminary conclusion.

Best,
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles