Understanding genetics

[JakesGotSnakes]

So im currently reading a book on ball pythons ive reached the genetics part now ill try to make this short I understand the punnett square for creating an albino simply one option is two heterozygous breeders (Na) now from the outcome of that you "should" come out to one homozygous two heterozygous (66%) and one albino of course this is how things are chanced but lets say you wanted to create an albino spider how would that punnett square be created ive wrote out alot of different combinations on paper but can't seem to understand it, I also have been toying around with the genetic wizard off of worldofballpythons but id like to understand the punnett square in general on paper
as always thanks for the help

[JakesGotSnakes]

And yes I do understand the 66% het because the albino trait is not visual within the normal looking ones lol

[JakesGotSnakes]

Posting in general discussion please delete thank you

[Aaron_S]

I can't explain the punnetts square. I do everything in my head.

Spider is a dominant gene so when bred the statistics say that 50% of all the babies will be homozygous for spider.

When bred to a recessive like albino it would result in:

50% of the babies will be normal 100% het albinos
50% of the babies will be spider 100% het albino

When breeding one of these spider babies back to the albino parent it would result in:

25% of the babies will be normal 100% het albino
25% of the babies will be spider 100% het albino
25% of the babies will be albino
25% of the babies will be spider albino

[jpsteele80]

Don't feel bad, I don't understand the whole genetics thing either

[smy_749]

I like to think I'm pretty good with genetics as I took a bunch of college courses in it, and i still get confused when I overthink it. Maybe this is an unrelated question (for Aaron), but how do you guys know that an animal is expressing genes x, y, z, a, and b when the patterns get crazy? I always see these new multi-gene morphs hatch and they give them names according to the genes they are carrying, but i never understood how they knew when they are all blended together like that. Just a good eye? or wild guess?

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by smy_749

I like to think I'm pretty good with genetics as I took a bunch of college courses in it, and i still get confused when I overthink it. Maybe this is an unrelated question (for Aaron), but how do you guys know that an animal is expressing genes x, y, z, a, and b when the patterns get crazy? I always see these new multi-gene morphs hatch and they give them names according to the genes they are carrying, but i never understood how they knew when they are all blended together like that. Just a good eye? or wild guess?

Good question.

Sometimes it's possible to tell because you know the genes of the parents really well and how they are inherited. (Like breeding a super enchi to super mojave super pastel. Everything will be mojave, enchi, pastel)

Other times it's a wild guess that people make a claim because it looks different from other hatchlings so they speculate that it is the best thing possible to get. Sometimes this can be easier done with certain genes like pinstripe is fairly obvious in a lot of combos (not all but most)

The only true way of knowing is breeding the animal out. Some people are just jumping the gun and are really anxious to hatch the cool cross they wanted so I get the excitement. It doesn't necessarily mean it's correct but I get it.

Lots of this happens on worldofballpythons.com lots of mislabelled animals out there so it's really a bad place to go when trying to find out what a cross may or may not look like.

EDIT: Some of it is a trained eye to really notice a particular mutations nuances but even then it can be the variability of ball pythons as a whole. Kind of off topic but it's been suspected by a few people that all ball pythons and thus all people's collections are genetically inheritable.

[jpsteele80]

Ok not to hijack this thread but to try and understand a little more, I've heard that if you breed a super tiger retic to any normal that they will all come out a normal tiger, but if you breed a tiger then you will get some normals and some tigers, I'm planning on getting a lavender super tiger for my lavender female. So is that true or will the super tiger gene carry down from a normal lavender? Also I know that lavender to lavender I'll get some whites and purples from that, not sure how many of each though.

[Dan84]

When a morph is labeled as "super", it refers to being homozygous for a given allele. So lets say that the tiger allele is called T and the normal is called N.

Lets assume that the normal allele creates a protein that causes a certain color and the tiger allele does not. This is called incomplete dominance.

NN - normal, has 100% pigment production.
NT - tiger, has 50% pigment production.
TT - super tiger, doesn't create any pigment.

So if you cross a super tiger to a normal then you will always get tiger. If you cross a super tiger to a tiger you will get 50% tiger and 50% super tiger. And finally, a normal to a tiger will give 50% tiger and 50% normal.

Note: I don't know exactly how the tiger gene functions, but this explanation should be correct.

[jpsteele80]

Ok thanks, so pretty much what was described to me, so if I get a lavender super tiger I will get all tigers in white, lavender and purple.

[Sublimeballs]

^^^^yes, all tigers and all the 3 forms of albino.

[Tsubaki]

im pretty sure i typed an elaborate reply to this question..?

Nvm found it, you posted this question twice.

Originally Posted by Tsubaki

First of all, some Punctuation would really help understanding what you are asking. I hope this helps, FYI: Genotype> present genes, Phenotype: visible genes.



2 Het breeders, so both an genes, a being the albino gene. Would come to produce:
25% aa < Homozygous. (Phenotype Albino, Genotype Albino)
50% na < Hetrozygous. (Phenotype Normal, Genotype Albino/Normal)
25% nn < Homozygous. (Phenotype Normal, Genotype Normal)
Both the an, and the nn are called 66% Het because you can not tell which are which, and you statistically have a 2 out of 3 or 66% chance of the animal having the gene.

So it seems you've got something wrong, since you are talking about both homozygous and albino's as if they are something different. The Albino's and a part of the Normals are Homozygous.



Spider is a dominant gene.. Not co-dominant, so a Sn will look the same as an SS. Simplest way to breed an albino spider regius would be:

Albino x Spider.

Albino gene does this:
100% na < (Phenotype Normal, Genotype Albino/Normal)

Spider gene does this:
50% Sn< Hetrozygous. (Phenotype Spider, Genotype Spider)
50% nn< Homozygous (Phenotype Normal, Genotype Normal)

Combined that would make:
50% Sn an, (Phenotype Spider, Genotype Spider, Albino)
50% nn an, (Phenotype Normal, Genotype Albino)
__________________________________________________ ________

If you then breed the Snan (Spider het. albino) to each other Snan ^ Snan you get 16 possible genetic combo's since both parents have 4 genes to take into account. (Don't forget to count the normal twice, since they have both a Spider^Normal and a Albino^Normal gene.)

56,25% Spiders (66% poss Alb.) (Of which, 18,75% Homozygous Spider)
18.75% Albino Spiders (Of which 6.25% homozygous Spider)
18.75% Normals (66% poss Alb)
6.25% Albino's

If you would make a punnett square it should look like this:



Hope this helped