# het BEL and het BlkEL



## mojorising (Jan 4, 2010)

If I bred a lesser to a black eye lucy would the fire/lesser offspring be het for both blue eyed and black eyed lucy?

If I bred a spider to a black eye lucy would the spire (fire x spider) offspring be het for black eye lucy?


Basically if any combo that has fire or lesser in, are they het for BlkEL or BEL, depending if it has fire or lesser or both in the combo?


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## Blackecho (Jun 30, 2008)

Its all about terminology, some people call Fire het BlkEL as they don't necessarily understand the genetics. Thinking that the word 'het' means hidden or something along those lines.

A BlkEL is the result of having a Homozygous (2 copies of the gene) Fire. Having one Fire gene would mean that it is Heterozygous Fire. As such, personally I would say there is no such thing as 'het BlkEL' or 'het BluEL'.


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## mojorising (Jan 4, 2010)

ok that makes sense to me.

But would let say a firebee or lesserbee if breed to a fire or lesser have a possible chance of producing a BlkEL or BEL?


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

Blackecho said:


> Its all about terminology, some people call Fire het BlkEL as they don't necessarily understand the genetics. Thinking that the word 'het' means hidden or something along those lines.
> 
> A BlkEL is the result of having a Homozygous (2 copies of the gene) Fire. Having one Fire gene would mean that it is Heterozygous Fire. As such, personally I would say there is no such thing as 'het BlkEL' or 'het BluEL'.



I agree that it is all about terminology - but surely saying that a Fire is the heterozygous for BlkEL is describing the genetics quite accurately?
i.e. the Fire morph is simply a visual het marker for BlkEL : victory:

BlkEL is a homozygous Fire - a visual Fire is the heterozygous form of BlkEL. Like you said - it's all about terminology - all much of a muchness really.

Let's imagine for a minute - that all het pied's were ringers. They would still be het for pied - but they would probably end up being considered co-dom and get their own morph name - Ringer. So, the homozygous form of the Ringer is the Pied. 

In the way you describe the Fire - 'Having one Fire gene would mean that it is Heterozygous Fire', then you would be calling the Ringer 'Heterozygous Ringer'.

Though genetically, things haven't changed - the Ringer is still het for Pied - it is not het Ringer, it IS a Ringer! The only thing that has changed is the 'het pied' now has a morph name due to visual markers - terminology 

Like the Fire isn't a het fire - it _is_ a Fire, and the Fire is the het for BlkEL.

Hope that makes sense :lol2:


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## Blackecho (Jun 30, 2008)

A Fire *is* a het Fire.

People use heterozygous incorrectly, heterozygous genes act differently depending on the gene type (Recessive, Co-Dom or Dominant).


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## Blackecho (Jun 30, 2008)

mojorising said:


> ok that makes sense to me.
> 
> But would let say a firebee or lesserbee if breed to a fire or lesser have a possible chance of producing a BlkEL or BEL?


Yes, both parents could pass down a Fire gene so the offspring could end up with both and as such, be a BlkEL. The same for the Lesser genes.


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

Blackecho said:


> A Fire *is* a het Fire.
> 
> People use heterozygous incorrectly, heterozygous genes act differently depending on the gene type (Recessive, Co-Dom or Dominant).


Yes, I am agreeing that Fire is heterozygous - by definition it HAS to be. But the Fire is the inherent heterozygous state - it is not het _for_ Fire - or is this where the terminology mish-mash is getting our wires crossed?:lol2:

But regardless of how it acts, the Fire is essentially a visual heterozygous marker for the allele which, in it's homozygous form, produces the BlkEL.

It's a visual marker which says 'Hello! The mutant allele is here!' - whereas in animals which are, for example, het albino, there are no such (obvious) markers. Yet both are heterozygous animals.

Regardless of whether they are Co-dom, Dominant or Recessive, the genes themselves are inherited in the same ways - it is simply the visual expression which changes. It doesn't matter how they act - the term heterozygous refers to the actual genetic state of the animal, not to the ways in which the genes are expressed.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

neep_neep said:


> Yes, I am agreeing that Fire is heterozygous - by definition it HAS to be. But the Fire is the inherent heterozygous state - it is not het _for_ Fire - or is this where the terminology mish-mash is getting our wires crossed?:lol2:


Yes, it's where the wires are getting crossed.

A heterozygous fire is visually a Fire; it carries one copy of Fire and one copy of "Not-Fire".
A homozygous fire is visually a BlkEL; it carries two copies of Fire.

If the Fire animals were identified first, the gene would - like Pastel - be named after the first identified "mutant" form; a BlkEL is a "Super Fire".


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

So it's all just semantics then :lol2: Good stuff.


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## mojorising (Jan 4, 2010)

neep_neep said:


> for example, het albino, there are no such (obvious) markers. Yet both are heterozygous animals.


I've seen 100% het pied an albinos for sale and in the ad, along with photo, the seller state that the royal shows the visual signs for het pied or albino. Is this bull? I thought it was when I read and that it was just selling point. 

Do two ringers make a pied then?


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

No, two ringers don't make a pied (if only it were so easy to identify hets!) - it's possible to get a het pied that IS a ringer, but not all ringers are anything to do with pied. I think that was meant as a for-example.

There is no visual sign, to my knowledge, of het albino.

Some people DO suggest that het pieds frequently have "tram lines" of black pigment along their underbellies, but this isn't 100% reliable. I know that if I had a litter of POSSIBLE het pieds, I might well pick out the ones with strong tramlines to keep and test out, but I wouldn't sell those animals as guaranteed het pied UNTIL they had produced pied offspring.


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

neep_neep said:


> I agree that it is all about terminology - but surely saying that a Fire is the heterozygous for BlkEL is describing the genetics quite accurately?
> i.e. the Fire morph is simply a visual het marker for BlkEL:lol2:


Saying that a Fire is the heterozygous form of BlkEL is mixing genotype and phenotype. It is poor terminology to mix the two. 

Genotype = the identity of the genes.

Phenotype = appearance that is the result of the genes interacting with the environment.

Heterozygous describes genotype. BlkEL is phenotype. Fire is both the name of the mutant gene and the name of the phenotype.

A royal python with a fire mutant gene paired with a normal gene has the genotype heterozygous fire. The heterozygous fire genotype produces the fire phenotype.

A royal python with two fire mutant genes has the genotype homozygous fire. The homozygous fire genotype produces the BlkEL phenotype.


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## Blackecho (Jun 30, 2008)

Thanks Ssthisto and Paul, both explanations clearer than mine


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## neep_neep (Oct 18, 2007)

paulh said:


> Heterozygous describes genotype. BlkEL is phenotype. Fire is both the name of the mutant gene and the name of the phenotype.



Right - I did not realise that the _gene _was actually called Fire - that makes sense now - I thought that Fire and BlkEL were both just phenotypic descriptions! 

So if the first person to describe the BlkEL decided that the gene was called the BlkEL gene instead of homozygous Fire...would we then refer to the Fire as the heterozygous BlkEL? Or is it convention that if the heterozygous state is a visual marker then the gene is named after that?

Cheers :2thumb:

(Edit: Just saw Ssthisto's response about convention! Question answered.)


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

neep_neep said:


> Right - I did not realise that the _gene _was actually called Fire - that makes sense now - I thought that Fire and BlkEL were both just phenotypic descriptions!
> 
> So if the first person to describe the BlkEL decided that the gene was called the BlkEL gene instead of homozygous Fire...would we then refer to the Fire as the heterozygous BlkEL?


Yes, if the first discovered animal was the Black-eyed Leucistic, then the *gene* would probably be called that, and Fires would be "het BlkEL". 

Just as the Russo-origin White Snake Complex animals are called Russo Het Leucistics - because the homozygous form was the first identified, and THEN they realised that "right, the heterozygous Leucistic carrier is actually distinguishable from normal if you look for this, this and this."


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## mojorising (Jan 4, 2010)

Original question has been answered so thanks for that but the replies regarding the het thing has really confused me. I've seen ads say fire het BlkEL and lesser het BEL, made sense to me coz you put two together to make a BEL or BlkEL. Like with het albino put two together and you get an albino. I understand that BEL and BlEL is the super form of lessers and fires and albino isnt called classed as a super form. Is it coz albino is recessive and BELs and BlkEL arent? Does het only work when its het for a recesseive gene? Never seen an ad for a pastel thats het for super pastel but if the super form was called jane for arguements sake people might advertise them as het for jane??


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

Yes, albino is not classed as a super form because the albino mutant gene is recessive to the normal gene. And you won't see "super" used in genetics texts because it is herper slang.

BEL and BlEL is the super form of lessers and fires because BEK and BlEL are the homozygous mutant forms and are more different from the appearance of a normal snake than lessers and fires (the heterozygous forms).

You may not have seen an ad saying that pastel is het for super pastel. However, pastel royal pythons have a pastel mutant gene paired with a normal gene. That makes pastel royal pythons heterozygous. Super pastel royal pythons have a pair of pastel mutant genes, which makes them the homozygous mutant form.

A gene pair is heterozygous when the two genes are not the same. Most heterozygous gene pairs are made up of a normal gene and a mutant gene. The mutant gene can be dominant, codominant or recessive to the normal gene. 

Most matings of two hets involve animals with the same set of genes -- both have an identical gene pair made up of a normal gene and a mutant gene. All matings of two of this type of hets work the same way as far as the genes go. 

Het (mutant gene and normal gene) X het (mutant gene and normal gene) produces
1/4 homozygous normal = two normal genes (phenotype is normal)
2/4 het = mutant gene and normal gene (phenotype varies depending on whether mutant is dominant, codominant or recessive to normal gene)
1/4 homozygous mutant = two identical mutant genes (full mutant phenotype)

The albino mutant gene is recessive to the normal gene. Het (albino mutant gene and normal gene) X het (albino mutant gene and normal gene) produces
1/4 homozygous normal = two normal genes (phenotype is normal)
2/4 het = albino mutant gene and normal gene (phenotype is normal)
1/4 homozygous mutant = two identical albino mutant genes (full mutant phenotype = albino)

The pastel mutant gene is codominant to the normal gene. Het (pastel mutant gene and normal gene) X het (pastel mutant gene and normal gene) produces
1/4 homozygous normal = two normal genes (phenotype is normal)
2/4 het = pastel mutant gene and normal gene (phenotype is pastel, which is not normal and not the same as the full mutant phenotype)
1/4 homozygous mutant = two identical pastel mutant genes (full mutant phenotype = super pastel)

The pinstripe mutant gene is dominant to the normal gene. Het (pinstripe mutant gene and normal gene) X het (pinstripe mutant gene and normal gene) produces
1/4 homozygous normal = two normal genes (phenotype is normal)
2/4 het = pinstripe mutant gene and normal gene (phenotype is pinstripe, same as the full mutant phenotype)
1/4 homozygous mutant = two identical pinstripe mutant genes (full mutant phenotype = pinstripe)

The appearance of the heterozygous animal determines whether a mutant gene is dominant, codominant, or recessive to the normal gene.


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## mojorising (Jan 4, 2010)

That almost makes perfect sense to me now. Cheers for that!!


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