# doulbe het sunglow x double het sunglow (boas)



## lee-travis (Jan 10, 2008)

i have a question that has been racking my brains for quite a while. I if was to breed 2 double het sunglow boas together (SsAa x SsAa) would would i get out of a clutch of 16?

i understand that the albino size of things, in that if ssaa for example was one of the offspring would this just be an albino?

what i dont understand is how the hypo (salmon) trait works. if one of the offspring is SSAA does that mean they are salmon or SsAA does that mean that this individual is het salmon?

are the below prediction right:

*SA Sa sA sa 

SA* SSAA SSAaSsAA SsAa*

Sa *SSAa SSaa SsAa Ssaa*

sA *SsAA SsAa ssAA ssAa*

sa *SsAa Ssaa ssAa ssaa

are these prediction right and can you explain in detail what each one of the offspring is?

many thanks


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

If you have a litter of sixteen you could get anything from all normals to all sunglows. The chance of "1 in 16" is per OFFSPRING not per litter.

Hypo is dominant, so an animal with one copy looks the same as an animal with two copies. SS looks the same as Ss - and only an ss is normal. 

Anything that is SS or Ss will be visually hypo. Anything that is ss is visually not hypo and does not carry hypo. 

Anything that is aa is visually albino. Anything that is AA or Aa is visually non-albino and would be considered "possible hets".

Therefore, your punnett square shows:

SSAA - Homozygous hypo, non-albino (1:16 chance per offspring) 
SSAa - Homozygous hypo, non-albino but het for albino (1:8 chance per offspring)
SSaa - Homozygous hypo, albino AKA Sunglow (1:16 chance per offspring)
SsAA - Heterozygous hypo, non-albino (1:8 chance per offspring)
SsAa - Heterozygous hypo, non-albino but het for albino (1:4 chance per offspring)
Ssaa - Heterozygous hypo, albino AKA Sunglow (1:8 chance per offspring)
ssAA - Non-hypo, non-albino (1:16 chance per offspring)
ssAa - Non-hypo, non-albino but het for albino (1:8 chance per offspring)
ssaa - Non-hypo, albino (1:16 chance per offspring).

All your non-albinos would be CALLED "66% chance het Albino" as there's a two in three chance they inherited the albino gene from one parent or the other.

The homozygous hypos might be distinguishable from the heterozygous hypos but there's no guarantee.


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## lee-travis (Jan 10, 2008)

cheers for that, thats what i had as a final answer aswell (just wanted to make sure i wasnt going wrong anywhere) but i think i was getting a little confused over 1:16 chance per animal rather than per litter, but i get it now so thanks.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Yeah, it'd be nice if you were guaranteed those perfect ratios, but what it really is would be more like flipping two pennies and two tenpence - what you need is at least one heads on the tenpence and BOTH pennies to be heads in order to get a Sunglow - but each flip of the coin is independent to any other flip.


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## lee-travis (Jan 10, 2008)

yeah... so am i right in say if you had a large female that had a large little (more than the normal range) you would have a greater chance of getting sunglows from this?

cheers for the help anyway


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Yup, the more times you flip the coins, the more chances you have to get the exact flip you need... but the more chances you ALSO have to get all of the other possible results!


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## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

In an ideal world what is the potential outcome percentages for a Double het sunglow x Sunglow pairing in relation to the ubove?

Cheers

Chris


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Well, one in 4 is 25%.
One in 8 is 12.5%.
One in 16 is 6.25%.


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## lee-travis (Jan 10, 2008)

if i have this right you should get

(SSaa "Sa" x SsAa)

Sa

SA SSAa
Sa SSaa
sA SsAa
sa Ssaa

so 

potentially you would get (if im right dont quote me):

1/4= SSAa or super salmon het albino
1/4= SSaa or super sunglow (need to be proved geentically through breeding)
1/4=SsAa salmon het albino
1/4= Ssaa sunglow

Im sure ssthisto will correct me


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

There's nothing saying a sunglow HAS to be homozygous hypo... so you'd be looking at SSaa or Ssaa as a sunglow.

You've still got the possibility of getting non-hypo offspring if you don't have a homozygous hypo Sunglow.


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Sorry for bringing this thread back, but actually that's what I was discussing the other day and eager to get to the bottom of.

I'll have to read it a few times until I can elaborate a few questions :whistling2:


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## bladeblaster (Sep 30, 2008)

Ssthisto said:


> If you have a litter of sixteen you could get anything from all normals to all sunglows. The chance of "1 in 16" is per OFFSPRING not per litter.
> 
> Hypo is dominant, so an animal with one copy looks the same as an animal with two copies. SS looks the same as Ss - and only an ss is normal.
> 
> ...


Isn't Hypo co-dom? As it has a super form?


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

bladeblaster said:


> Isn't Hypo co-dom? As it has a super form?


A homozygous hypo cannot be visually distinguished from a heterozygous hypo - which means that the trait is dominant.


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## bladeblaster (Sep 30, 2008)

ah right sorry.


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

bladeblaster said:


> Isn't Hypo co-dom? As it has a super form?


This expands a bit on what Ssthisto wrote. Salmon (hypo) was originally called a codominant mutant because the appearance is variable. But the breeders say there is enough variation in appearance that they can only guess which animals have two copies of the salmon mutant gene and which have one salmon gene paired with a normal gene. Sometimes they guess right, sometimes wrong. 

If salmon was a codominant mutant gene, the breeders could give you a money-back guarantee on the genetics. They don't. So salmon is not a codominant, and it's not a recessive mutant gene either. By elimination, it has to be a dominant mutant gene.


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*Sorry new to this but trying to learn.*

SSaa - Homozygous hypo, albino AKA Sunglow (1:16 chance per offspring)

So looking at this possible result out of a litter of 16, assuming the percentages were 100% accurate, this basically means that each of the 16 offspring has a 1 in 16 chance of being Salmon/(Super Salmon) Sunglow. Sorry like the topic reads I'm am new to this so please correct me if I am wrong and help me to figure out where I am confused on this.

Also this might seem really ignorant but assuming that you have a litter of 16 and each snake has a 1:16 chance to inherit these traits couldn't you figure that down to to saying that there is a very good chance that at least 1 out of the 16 offspring will be Salmon Sunglow?

Sorry for the stupidity but I only own a regular B.C. Imperator unknown for any het traits. However this has always been a major interest for me and I finally decided to start looking into it. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Yes, you do have a reasonable chance, in a litter of 16, that you will get a Super Sunglow. But... just because you've got a reasonable chance doesn't mean the coin flips will work out.

I had a clutch of 24 corn snake eggs. This clutch had a 1:16 chance of producing a triple-homozygous Moonstone Stripe and a 1:64 chance of producing a quad-homozygous Glacier Stripe. 

Have a guess at which of the two I have actually hatched out this year.

The flip of the coin produced the Glacier Stripe - but not the simpler morph.


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*Awesome*

Well yeah I know it's not a perfect science but was I somewhere along the right path? Also I'm a little confused on the salmon trait I had read that it was recessive like albinsm but apparently some places are due for an update on information. So if I was to purchase a Salmon there is a chance it could be het(Ss) or ****(ss) and the only way to know is if it's proven. To further that isn't there still some difference in phenotype from a het slamon and a **** salmon? I have been seriously considering buying and breeding a Albino with a Slamon, but I don't like the idea of not knowing wether I'm pairing aaSS(albino) with AASs(salmon het) or AAss(salmon ****). That would make things a bit more tricky to calculate.

Also congrats on th glacier stripe that's some serious trait mixing.:no1:


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Salmon is DOMINANT, not recessive. So you wouldn't be able to tell whether it is SS (homozygous "super" salmon) or Ss (heterozygous salmon).

No, there is no way to be absolutely SURE without breeding trials whether you've got a het-salmon or a homozygous-salmon.


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*Sorry to keep bugging but hungry for info.*

So chances are if the site I would purchase from is offering Salmon Boas and Super Salmon Boas and I was to buy the Salmon it should be het for dominant gene Salmon appearing as Ss but will still show signs of Salmon phenotype. Also Anery is recessive correct? So if I was to breed a het salmon with an anery it would look something like this: SsNN x SSnn correct? This mix would be what is commonly refered to as a ghost if I'm not mistaken. thanks for all your help I do appreciate it.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

A heterozygous salmon will HAVE the Salmon phenotype (not just "signs of"), because Salmon is a dominant gene, dominant to normal Not-Salmon.

Heterozygous Salmon to homozygous Anery would be:

SsAA to ssaa (Capital S for dominant salmon; lower-case s for normal not-salmon)

And the resulting offspring would be:

SsAa (Salmon het Anery)
ssAa (Normal het Anery)

Breed a Salmon het Anery to another Anery or Salmon het Anery for Ghosts.


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*correct myself*

I take that back after looking at the punnet square it wouldn't be possible to produce a ghost from this eqaution only a Salmon het for Anery (SsNn) I think.


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*cool thanks much*

Oh yeah forgot since dominant to list as capital. So Ss for reg Salmon, SS for super salmon, and ss for wild-type. So best possible outcome for that litter would be SsNn which could then be breeded further to produce a Ghost. If by some crazy breeding luck you were able to produce SSnn would it be called a Super Ghost or a Super Salmon Ghost?


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

I think they're called Super Ghosts - and there's a 1:16 chance of getting a Super Ghost from a pair of Salmons het Ghost


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## kalenh (Jul 2, 2009)

*Nice*

Awesome thanks a lot man you have helped me to understand this a lot better. Hopefully I'm not doing too bad considering I just started learning about this last night. So is it possible to mix a ghost Ssnn with a sunglow Ssaa. If so it would look like this SsnnAA x SsNNaa right? If it is possible and you did end up producing a Ssnnaa or SSnnaa what is the name for that morph? Also I was wondering if you had any advice on any places online I could find a good deal on a baby Anerys, albinos, and salmons.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

A Salmon Albino Anery is also known as a "Moonglow".


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Ssthisto said:


> If you have a litter of sixteen you could get anything from all normals to all sunglows. The chance of "1 in 16" is per OFFSPRING not per litter.
> 
> Hypo is dominant, so an animal with one copy looks the same as an animal with two copies. SS looks the same as Ss - and only an ss is normal.
> 
> ...


Hi, sorry for bringing this up again, but I get more and more confused the more I read about it.

I'm reading a lot of stuff about genetics, and doing punnetts square to reach my own conclusions, but the hypo ones are the trickiest.

First of all, the book I'm reading at the moment says that people erroneously say hypos are dominant. They call hypos as an 'incomplete dominant' gene.

So in that book, the use the hypo gene as a recessive gene for illustrative purposes.

For instance, they call it Nh = hypo. However because it's an incomplete dominance, visually it would be a hypo.

N for normal and h for hypo.

So the punnett square of crossing to hypos would be:

N h

N NN Nh 

h Nh hh

25% NN = normal
50% Nh = hypo
25% hh - super hypo

The reason I'm saying this is because I'll try to do the punnet square for Hypo het for albino (double het sunglow) using the nomenclature shown in the book, which will be different to this in your post, but hopefully I'll come up with the same results (provided I can interpret the results lol)

By the way, you are calling SS a super salmon or Ss a super salmon ?


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Dexter said:


> First of all, the book I'm reading at the moment says that people erroneously say hypos are dominant. They call hypos as an 'incomplete dominant' gene.


The book may be incorrect.

Basically, there isn't a reliable way to tell whether the hypo/salmon you're holding is homozygous or heterozygous for the hypo/salmon trait. 

That makes salmon/hypo dominant, not incompletely dominant.



> By the way, you are calling SS a super salmon or Ss a super salmon ?


Homozygous salmon is what's commonly called "super" salmon - SS.


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Ssthisto said:


> The book may be incorrect.
> 
> Basically, there isn't a reliable way to tell whether the hypo/salmon you're holding is homozygous or heterozygous for the hypo/salmon trait.
> 
> ...


The book I'm talking about is The Complete Boa Constrictor by Vincent Russo, a very renowned hepertologist.

I'll quote the part of the book he talks about that:

INCOMPLETE DOMINANCE

For many years, reptile breeders have erroneously used the term 'co-dominant' when in reality they are referring to incomplete dominance. Incomplete dominance is similar to a recessive trait, in that the heterozygous offspring are genes carriers for a specific trait. However, in breeding scenarios where incomplete dominance is involved the heterozygous animals have a visual indicator and therefore are referred to as 'visually heterozygous.' This means the offspring exhibitanother type of colour or pattern that is halfway between the normal appereance and the 'super' or more exaggerated dominant form. So if you breed boas to each other that have an incomplete dominant trait and that are visually heterozygous for an extreme trait, you will have a one-in-four chance of producing the super, exaggerated form which will be dominant.

He uses this example for hypos (although it's not often possible to tell the difference between a super hypo and a hypo) and motleys. Motleys are the typical example of incomplete dominance because the super motley is normally all black.

By no means I'm going against of any of you're saying, I'm just trying to reach a conclusion based on what I was reading recently, because most of the stuff I read so far in that book makes a lot of sense, but when I compare to what other people have said, although it's pretty much the same thing, the line of thought might be a little different.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Dexter said:


> "So if you breed boas to each other that have an incomplete dominant trait and that are visually heterozygous for an extreme trait, you will have a one-in-four chance of producing the super, exaggerated form which will be dominant."


This quote makes me think that the definition of "dominant" is being misunderstood by the author. 

Dominant and homozygous are not interchangeable. An incomplete dominant trait is still incomplete dominant if it's homozygous (it doesn't magically change its heritability so that the het form looks indistinguishable from the homozygous form). A dominant trait is dominant even if there's only one copy of it.

Dominant genes look the same whether they are het or homozygous - Hypo acts like this; it's not possible to reliably pick out homozygous animals from a group of hets and homozygous.

Incomplete dominant ("codominant" is often used by herpers to mean the same thing) does not look the same when het as when homozygous - if you put a bunch of each into a bag, you could reliably pick out which are which.


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Nice, I'm open for all views. Thanks for replying.

I've just finished the punnett square and now I'm trying to interpret.

I'm pretty sure I'll get to the same result for offspring, but the I tried and work out as per the book I'm reading, so if I post it here it will look really odd, comparing to the way you were working out in this thread.


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

*That's how I worked out (but haven't revised it yet)*

Wait, I'll have to save it as a picture ...


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)




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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

Dexter said:


> The book I'm talking about is The Complete Boa Constrictor by Vincent Russo, a very renowned hepertologist.
> 
> I'll quote the part of the book he talks about that:
> 
> ...


I have Russo's book. There is a lot of good stuff in it, but it would have been a better (and possibly less expensive) book if he had left the genetics chapter out entirely. 

On the level that reptile breeders are working, codominant and incomplete dominant are synonyms. Other terms that are more or less synonymous with "codominance" include partial dominance, semidominance, less than dominant, transdominance, overdominance, and half a dozen others. I prefer "codominant" to the others mostly because it uses the fewest characters.

The results of the Punnett square are correct. I would use different symbols, but that's a minor issue. The important part is that the square is correct.


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Thanks Paul. I always like your posts :notworthy:

Maybe you should make some extra few box by writing a book :2thumb:

Since I'm no expert and I enjoy reading about the subjects, because even if you might find some incosistency or disagreement in opinions here and there, it makes my brains work and want to research more.

Many thanks.


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## bothrops (Jan 7, 2007)

kalenh said:


> Well yeah I know it's not a perfect science but was I somewhere along the right path? Also I'm a little confused on the salmon trait I had read that it was recessive like albinsm but apparently some places are due for an update on information. So if I was to purchase a Salmon there is a chance it could be het(Ss) or ****(ss) and the only way to know is if it's proven. To further that isn't there still some difference in phenotype from a het slamon and a **** salmon? I have been seriously considering buying and breeding a Albino with a Slamon, but I don't like the idea of not knowing wether I'm pairing aaSS(albino) with AASs(salmon het) or AAss(salmon ****). That would make things a bit more tricky to calculate.
> 
> Also congrats on th glacier stripe that's some serious trait mixing.:no1:


 

Interesting read! Particularly about the status of the hypo in boas.

I was always uinder the impression that there was a difference between hypos and superhypos (i.e. super hypos have even more extreme melanin reduction and an increased pattern reduction) although the 'boundary' if you like between the two is difficult to define (i.e. a 'low grade super hypo' would overlap with a 'high grade hypo'). As such although it is impossible to be 100% sure when you have bred hypo to hypo breeders will be able to pick out the most likely supers (i.e. most highly reduced pattern, least black) and those that are least likely. It is for this reason that you often see 'possible supers' and 'probable supers' on price lists.


To the OP - it is perfectly possible to buy gauranteed het hypos and (almost) gauranteed super hypos.

If I have bred a hypo(unknown if het or ****) to a normal animal and produced a single normal in the litter then I can gaurentee that all the hypos in the litter are het hypos. 

If I breed an unknown het/**** hypo to a normal and produce 100% hypos, it isn't 100% gauranteed, but it is likely that the hypo parent is a superhypo (i.e. 1 normal offspring *disproves* the superhypo, but all hypos *doesn't* _prove_ the super, just provides strong evidence for it!)

After a couple of litters of 100% hypos from the pairing (particularly if they are large litters) then you can be pretty positive you have a super hypo. If you breed a super hypo to a super hypo then all the offspring are super hypo (as near to gauranteed as you are going to get (however if any animal from that litter breed to a non hypo and produce a _single normal_ the entire litter _and_ (at least one of) the parents are disproven as supers! And as you wouldn't know which parent, you could say either!)



For example I have a het hypo (from a hypo/normal breeding) and I have a 'probable' super from a hypo to hypo breeding. I picked the 'probable' for its EXTREME reduced patterning as that is the most likely indicator that it is a superhypo. Of course I will only know any better by breeding although as stated I will never be able to 'prove' she is super only provide strong evidence for, or indeed disprove her! (on top of that she is also 66% het albino so I have a bit of work to do with her!) 


I hope that hasn't confused you too much and I would be interested in Ssthisto and Paulh 's views on the whole 'possible' 'probable' thing and particularly if they have any pictures/evidence of really dark, low reduction hypos turning out to be superhypos or any highly reduced pattern very low black hypos proving to be het hypos?

Cheers

Andy


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

bothrops said:


> For example I have a het hypo (from a hypo/normal breeding) and I have a 'probable' super from a hypo to hypo breeding. I picked the 'probable' for its EXTREME reduced patterning as that is the most likely indicator that it is a superhypo. Of course I will only know any better by breeding although as stated I will never be able to 'prove' she is super only provide strong evidence for, or indeed disprove her! (on top of that she is also 66% het albino so I have a bit of work to do with her!)


You are right that there are indications that suggest that a super hypo in certain cases might distinguish from the hypos, even though to be 100% sure you will need to prove it through breeding.

However you're wrong about the het hypo thing.

If you bred a normal to a hypo, 50% of the litter will be NORMAL HET FOR NOTHING and 50% of the litter will be HYPOS.

So if you have a boa that came from a cross between a normal and a hypo, and it's not a hypo, it will never produce a hypo in a million years.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Dexter said:


> You are right that there are indications that suggest that a super hypo in certain cases might distinguish from the hypos, even though to be 100% sure you will need to prove it through breeding.


And there's the problem with these arbitrary words "dominant" and "codominant". I suppose "variable incomplete dominant" would be most correct.



> However you're wrong about the het hypo thing.
> 
> If you bred a normal to a hypo, 50% of the litter will be NORMAL HET FOR NOTHING and 50% of the litter will be HYPOS.
> 
> So if you have a boa that came from a cross between a normal and a hypo, and it's not a hypo, it will never produce a hypo in a million years.


Note that "het hypo" is perfectly correct *as long as the animal is visually a hypo*. A hypo with only one copy of hypo paired with "not hypo" is heterozygous for the hypo gene.

I have no doubt that Bothrops' snake is het hypo; I also have no doubt that it is visually hypomelanistic.


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## bothrops (Jan 7, 2007)

Ssthisto said:


> Note that "het hypo" is perfectly correct *as long as the animal is visually a hypo*. A hypo with only one copy of hypo paired with "not hypo" is heterozygous for the hypo gene.
> 
> I have no doubt that *Bothrops' snake is het hypo; I also have no doubt that it is visually hypomelanistic*.


: victory:!






Dexter said:


> However you're wrong about the het hypo thing. *As Ssthisto pointed out, no I'm not:Na_Na_Na_Na:*
> 
> If you bred a normal to a hypo, 50% of the litter will be NORMAL *with* *homozygous alleles at the melanin producing gene loci for 'normal melanin production'* and 50% of the litter will be *het *HYPOS *(i.e. heterozygous at that loci. One allele being a 'normal melanin production' version and one being a 'reduce the amount of melanin' copy (i.e a mutation of the 'wild type' allele)*
> 
> So if you have a boa that came from a cross between a normal and a hypo, and it's not a hypo, it will never produce a hypo in a million years. *Thats not true either! I have a large normal female that is a 'salmon sib' if I put her to my male hypo she will indeed produce at least one hypo, probably a lot more:lol2: :2thumb: (of course clearly that would happen whether she was a salmon sib or not and I am being pedantic, but still!)*


:2thumb:

Cheers

Andy


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## Dexter (Jun 24, 2005)

Ssthisto said:


> Note that "het hypo" is perfectly correct *as long as the animal is visually a hypo*. A hypo with only one copy of hypo paired with "not hypo" is heterozygous for the hypo gene.
> 
> I have no doubt that Bothrops' snake is het hypo; I also have no doubt that it is visually hypomelanistic.


Yes, of course. Actually the concept of het hypo is the one I use when I'm doing my punnett squares.

The confusions was that when I read it for the first time I thought Bothrops meant that he had a het hypo as in a visually normal snake het hypo.

Of course if it's visually a hypo, then it's all well and good.


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## bothrops (Jan 7, 2007)

Dexter said:


> Yes, of course. Actually the concept of het hypo is the one I use when I'm doing my punnett squares.
> 
> The confusions was that when I read it for the first time I thought Bothrops meant that he had a het hypo as in a visually normal snake het hypo.
> 
> Of course if it's visually a hypo, then it's all well and good.


 
and although it is clear that you know that difference, this is exactly mhy I get 'narky' when others on the forum tell noobies that 'het means hidden' or 'het means you can't tell they are carrying a copy of the gene.'

I often get flamed by the OP that they were 'trying to put it simply so they can understand' and the 'its just semantics', but I'm sorry, it's wrong information. End of!


Cheers

Andy


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