Dan, your supposed "scientific" test is rife with so many holes that it's nowhere near being scientific at all despite you being one of those "inevitable loud mouths who scream their beliefs loud enough and long enough until everyone is afraid to disagree".
"The reason such rumors start and are spread is twofold: One problem is that most people don't approach things using the scientific method, and the other part is the inevitable loud mouths who scream their beliefs loud enough and long enough until everyone is afraid to disagree. The latter being a major issue in the hognose hobby of late."
It's so funny and yet weird that you've accused me of being so non-scientific, argumentative and spreading your so-called "rumors". I've already shown in my prior reply to your thread several instances where I have always kept an open mind about the so-called white-wall Anaconda marker, and yet, here's another quote of mine written in 2013 to further validate against the lies you've stated about me:
"This of course is all theoretical based on the studies of Anaconda markers I've made over the years. There is always the possibility that even the "white wall" marker might someday be proven incorrect, so always pay close attention to your offspring's markings."
So yes, let's finally put your "scientific" test to rest...
"Be skeptical. Ask questions. Conduct tests. Try to prove yourself wrong, and we will all be better off."
And what questions did you ask, how many tests did you do, did you try to prove yourself wrong on any level? Let us examine what you wrote...
"Looking at his dorsum, you could clearly see that he was a conda."
Here's your first mistake, you've drawn a conclusion before any tests were ever done, you claim that this was an anaconda just from the dorsal pattern alone. That is clearly what you said, "he was a conda", before any test breeding was ever done. Hardly scientific at all!
"He had the characteristics of rounded and reduced blotches, and reduced blotch count. ...he lacked any sign of being a conda on his belly. His belly was not black, and he had no whitewalls. I posted pictures of him on this forum..."
There is no argument about his dorsal pattern being anaconda-ish. But then again, there is a high variability of pattern differences/anamolies with Normal hognose such as twin-spots, bowties, tiger striping, spinal stripes (most it not all found on anacondas) and completely abberrant patterns such as the spiders (which to date have never been proven out), etc. In the 8-9 years that I've been keeping/breeding hognose, I've seen a multitude of pattern abberancies that were assumed as "morphs" only to never have been proven out or seemed to prove out as polygenic traits if selectively bred to a similiar trait animal.
The one thing that you don't realize, probably because you only recently got into the hognose morph craze only a few years ago, is that when anacondas first came out, and I was one of the first group to have purchased mine back in 2008 was that there were a handful of "markers" that were believed to define an anaconda such as: reduced neck pattern, minimal spot-like dorsal pattern, solid black belly and the white-wall seperation between the dorsal and ventral scale pattern. I wrote an extensive post here back in 2010 about determining anaconda markers but unfortunately everything past 2013 was lost for this forum. However, the only marker that proved to be consistent after many outcrossings to Normals amongst collections , at the time in 2010, was the white-walls and for the most part, the solid black bellies. But after much outcrossing with other morphs such as the Amels, the black belly trait was crossed off the list which I wrote extensively about here. And it's key to note that even back then in 2013 when I wrote that post, I still said one very key thing "With Anacondas, you can look for the "white wall", if not found, then chances are it's probably just a Normal.". The key words being "chances are", there were no definitives being spoken from me, just probabilities based on all of the anacondas all of us had produced from 2008-2013.
"So, I decided to hold him back to do a test cross. My argument, which I foolishly made in the presence of people like Troy Rexroth who attacked and insulted me for even suggesting it, was that the only thing that truly defines a conda is its ability to produce supers."
Once again, to reiterate, and what Dan even admitted in this thread, I never once argued nor insulted him about his argument in regards to his snake being an Anaconda or not. In fact, I don't even recall the conversation he is referring to. But like Dan did finally admit, I did engage him about what I believe to be his misusage of the term incomplete dominant when I supplied him with facts and quotes taken directly from college genetics books of which he complelely ignored and dismissed without supplying any information whatsoever to the contrary.
Interestingly though, Dan said this (in the above quote) "My argument ... was that the only thing that truly defines a conda is its ability to produce supers.". Actually, that's been proven to be highly subjective if not possibly wrong due to the fact that several anacondas were bred to clean gene (never exposed to the Anaconda gene) Normals and produced, what we eventually coined back then, as high expression Anacondas. Again, at the time (2009-2010) before Dan was really into the hognose morph scene and he definitely was not part nor active on any of the forums here at the time, it was believed that Anacondas all had the same basic look based on the simple fact that all of us had purchased ours from Brent Bumgardner; so the gene stock and visual appearance was generally the same for all Anacondas at the time. In other words, the terms "low expression" and "high expression" didn't even exist back then. It wasn't until we all started breeding and outcrossing our Anacondas (2009-2010) that we started to see a high variation in both patterns and "markers". Several people back then even produced what were originally believed to be Supercondas from an Anaconda to Normal pairing which added much confusion and mystery to the Anaconda gene only to later confirm that these supposed "Supers" were then determined to be actual Anacondas and thus dubbed as "high expression" Anacondas and the ones that looked more like Normals as "low expression" Anacondas".
"I hypothesized that it would be possible to produce a nearly normal looking snake that was still het patternless, or "conda" and I proposed to test it by breeding Wonderbread to a normal conda female. If I produced supers, he would be, by definition, a conda or het patternless, despite his lack of white walls. ... This spring, I bred Bread to a normal conda."
So again, Dan's supposed "hypothesis" (whenever he actually claims he made it as if he ever really did) was proven wrong by those breeders many years prior having produced Superconda-is "high expression" Anacondas from known Anaconda genes to known Normal genes. If Dan was a part of the hognose morph scene prior to 2013, he would have known this!
"She laid 12 good eggs in the first clutch, and 17 in the second."
Ok, so how many "Supers", Anacondas and Normals hatched out of the first and 2nd clutches? Out of the "Supers" and definite Anacondas, how many had the characteristic white-wall markers or black bellies for that matter? You offer us no data whatsoever to make any determination about your "hypothesis" actually being true. A real scientist knows the value of data and supplies all of it for peer review, you've offered next to nothing, only scant subjective/selective data to try and support your supposed "hypothesis".
"So far, there are two confirmed patternless or "supers", but several eggs have not emerged."
This is so ridiculous. Seriously, you are making determinations based on a clutch that hasn't even fully hatched out. Were the "Supers" even fully out of the eggs before you determined they were "Supers"?
"Conclusion: Characteristics like black bellies, white walls, reduced blotch count, and reduced pattern are all characteristic of het patternless, or "anaconda" hognose, but none of them are required to be present in order to define the snake as such. The only true way to prove that a snake is het patternless is if it produces patternless animals when bred to another het patternless, or a patternless."
But here's where his scientific method fails and fails miserably... According to everything he wrote, he only did one breeding with "Wonderbread" to a known Anaconda and produced very questionable "Supers" that could ultimately be high expression Anacondas. If Dan was truly being scientific about any of this, he would also have bred "Wonderbread" to a clean gene Normal to see if any Anacondas were produced. If not Anacondas were produced from a "Wonderbread" to Normal pairing (or two), then the conclusion could (maybe should) be made that "Wonderbread" is in fact NOT an Anaconda.
For the 7 years that I've been keeping and breeding Anacondas/Supercondas and for all of the offspring I've seen produced from all of my peers through all of these years, I have never ever seen an Anaconda that had a belly that looked that Normal such as "Wonderbread's", never! Yes, I've seen broken white-walls; yes, I've seen yellow coloration on those "black bellies" but never have I ever seen a more typical Normal belly such as the one seen on "Wonderbread" with the dorsal coloration bleeding over the white-walls and with the atypical yellow and black checkering having been seen on an Anaconda. Is it possible? You bet it's possible, I've always left that door open in my mind and have stated it many times throughout the years. But if you are going to actually prove that case to be true, then you truly need to do all of the work before you draw any conclusions whatsoever. And yet Dan has drawn conclusions, made assumptions and even bad-mouthed people over incomplete and inconclusive testing. Dan could ultimately be correct in the end, but only correct through assumptions. And there's nothing intelligent nor scientific about that!
For a true test, this is what I believe should be done to be completely conclusive in determining whether "Wonderbread" is in fact a true Anaconda and I believe it can be done with a single type of test that will give true results:
#1. Breed "Wonderbread" to 2 unrelated pure Normals at least once.
#2 If no Anacondas are produced, then do another test breeding to the same females or different ones. If, again, no Anacondas are produced, then I would rule out that "Wonderbread" was ever an Anaconda to begin with!
The problem with Dan's test is that the female he bred "Wonderbread" to already has the Anaconda gene, so this taints the test because the Anaconda gene from that female can produce low expression (Normal looking) to high expression (Superconda looking) offspring. If he truly wants to test whether "Wonderbread" is an Anaconda, the only way to do it is to produce Anacondas from pairing him to Normals.
"Now, I don't mean to say that the white wall is meaningless. Truly, it is very meaningful. All but one of the condas that I have bred or worked with have had well defined white walls, and their presence is strong evidence (the strongest, even) that a snake is in fact het for patternless. What I'm saying is, if the snake lacks white walls, and is showing other markers, such as reduced blotch count, reduced pattern, etc., it may still be a conda. Wonderbread is living proof."
This might eventually prove true, it might even be true now. But as it stands, you've tainted your own test and got skewed results that are not determinate nor definitive and nothing that you can ultimately prove at this point. But again, you claim that "Wonderbread is living proof" by drawing an ignorant conclusion based on inconclusive results based on a tainted test. Do the one test that I've outlined, that will be far more determinate than your tainted test. And please, give us all of the data regarding the offspring from your clutches (ratio of Anacondas to Normals and what their bellies look like) because your scant information tells us nothing and can be misleading.
The bottom line is, based on the facts of Dan's actual testimony, one cannot make any real determination as to the actual genetics of "Wonderbread". The wrong test was applied which gave inconclusive results period!
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
