color morph questions

codykrr

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
3,112
ok, so i have some questions. now i have kept snakes since i was knee high to a grasshopper. i know pretty much all here is to know about the "keeping" aspect of them. but i have almost no clue about breeding them..not breeding like getting them to mate, but how to breed for color morphs. for instance. i seen an add somethinglike this.

mature male pastel ball python 100% het for albino-example 1.

or mature female spyder ball 30% het for blah blah..

so what in he world does this stuff mean. i know it hassomethingto do with what kind of offspring the can have...but can omeonebreak this down to me?
also i have a nice female ballpython so how do you tell what color morph they are or if there regular..i belive sheis regular.
 

Jmugleston

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
1,578
It is based off of simple Mendelian genetics. We'll use albinism as an example.

It is based off every individual carrying two copies of each gene. On these simple traits, one gene comes from mom and the other from dad. If an albino snake breeds with a wild type snake, then all the offspring get an albino gene from one parent and a wild type (normal) gene from the other. This results in young that are 100% heterozygous for albino.

If a snake that is heterozygous for albino (one normal and one albino gene) breeds with a snake that is normal (both copies wild type) then the offspring are one of two things. Statistically (when the sample size is infinite) half will get the normal genes from both parents and the other half will get one albino and one normal gene combination. The result is what we call in the hobby 50% hets or more appropriately, 50% possible hets. Better put, each one from this pairing has a 50% chance of carrying the albino gene though they won't express it.

If you mix two heterozygous individuals, then each offspring has a 25% chance of being albino, 25% chance of being completely normal and 50% chance of being heterozygous. Since the hets and normals look the same in most cases, this is where you get the 66% possible hets.

The X% possible hets. stem from this. If it were two traits, say the striped mutation and the albino mutation in reticulated pythons, then the numbers will change a bit so you'll sometime see more than just 100%, 66%, or 50%.

This works with most the simple Medelian traits. If you add two traits, say albino and pied, then the equations get a bit more complicated, but not much. A google search for Gregor Mendel or Punnett Squares will probably offer a bit more help and also explain things like Co-dominant traits, Dominant, Recessive, etc.
 
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