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View Full Version : Difficulty in learning snake genetics - and some interesting info


Scales Zoo
12-28-04, 09:04 PM
I've had a pretty good handle on snake genetics since I was 13.

Having that, I've been able to keep up on python, boas, and corn morphs and things - with the help of people like Katt and Dan.

I've been asked, and answered, repeatedly to the same people many times - many questions about genetics. We've seen confusion about ghost boas, dominant vs. recessive, and hets and things quite a bit, in the past and also just recently.

I just realized today, how difficult a task it must be to figure out how geneitics work, then to remember if salmon is dominant, then is hypo in corns dominant etc...

Until Tim's genetic's page - there really weren't any webpages that answered all the questions, or laid it out really simple.

To try to keep a long story shorter... We've been getting horses. Sheila is a horse expert from way back, and I know nothing about horses, but am trying to learn cause I like them. Knowing how genetics work, I still have not really learned what causes our leopard appy to look like like that, and carry blue roan genetics. I've asked, and been answered more than once.

So here is sympathy going out to everyone trying to figure out snake color and pattern genetics, while avoiding mass confusion.

I thought I'd pass a webpage about horse genetics on, because if you pretend it is about snakes, it is a real basic and easy model for dominant and recessive genetics - very well explained, I think.
http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/dreams/799/hc/horsecolors.htm
(read the links in order as it says to do)

Also, on a funny note, my brain stalled when I came to the realization that breeding a het dominant to a het dominant (like breeding a salmon boa to a salmon boa, where 75% would be salmons, 1/3 of which would be super salmons) - gives me a 25% chance of getting just a normal colored baby.

Really makes a difference when there is only 1 baby.

The other big thing I just found out, like 1 second ago. They DNA type horses to see if they are homozygous, or hetrozygous for traits. Anyone ever heard of anyone doing this for snakes? Imagine taking shed skins of a litter in to find out which ones poss hets were true hets?

4 years ago, or so, I had been in correspondance with the people who DNA sex birds, to see about doing so for snakes. They said a shed snake skin would work, but were not set up at the time to do so.

Ryan

Katt
12-28-04, 09:20 PM
Serpwidget's Genetic Primer is probably the Grand daddy of all snake genetics sites. His primer has been up for years and in several incarnations.

Serp has even written a book on cornsnake genetics/colours.

Here's his site.
http://www.serpwidgets.com/Genetics/genetics.html

The mass confusion in snake genetics is the names don't carry over from species to species. Hypo isn't incomplete dominant in corns as in boas, snow cal kings aren't anery+albino like in corns (snow cals are albino+melanism).

Luckily nucleic acids are the same in all cells in all things alive.

chas*e
12-28-04, 10:20 PM
Ya the serpwidget site is great for that genetic thing