# Some genetics questions



## Lucifus (Aug 30, 2007)

Ok im getting confused with the morphs thing at the moment. If Mac snow leopard geckos are dominant genes do they occur naturally within nature the same as all other dominant genetics so we have mac snow geckos in the wild?

Also with the entire het buisness how come certain ones have 3 or more hets, i thought only two genes are used so it would be imposible to have more but seems that im wrong. Can anyone explain this?

Thanks in advance!


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Lucifus said:


> Ok im getting confused with the morphs thing at the moment. If Mac snow leopard geckos are dominant genes do they occur naturally within nature the same as all other dominant genetics so we have mac snow geckos in the wild?


Ok, first, Mack Snow is not dominant. It is "incompletely dominant" to wildtype normal.

Yes, there probably are Mack Snows in the wild, however, being "wildtype" does NOT mean that Wildtype is dominant to all other genes, nor does it mean that all dominant traits exist in the wild! For example, Enigma in leopard geckos is dominant to Wildtype - but to my knowledge it does NOT exist in the wild population. Near as I can tell it was a point mutation in a captive line. 



> Also with the entire het buisness how come certain ones have 3 or more hets, i thought only two genes are used so it would be imposible to have more but seems that im wrong. Can anyone explain this?


An animal isn't made up of one single pair of genes. It is made up of hundreds or thousands of pairs - and EACH pair can be homozygous for (version A/B/C/etc of the trait) or heterozygous for two different versions of the same trait.

So a leopard gecko who is het for Tremper albino, blizzard and patternless is not *abp*; it is *Aa Bb Pp* - each trait has its OWN gene pair to be het on.

Now, where it gets complicated is when there are different flavours of the SAME gene pair - for example, in royal pythons, the following traits are all flavours of the same pair (the "White snake" complex):
Mojave
Butter
Lesser Platinum
Russo Lemon Line
Phantom
Mystery Dilute

Because these are different flavours of the same pair, an animal can't be het for more than two of them - and if it's homozygous for one, it can't be het for any of the others!


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## Lucifus (Aug 30, 2007)

Ssthisto said:


> Ok, first, Mack Snow is not dominant. It is "incompletely dominant" to wildtype normal.
> 
> Yes, there probably are Mack Snows in the wild, however, being "wildtype" does NOT mean that Wildtype is dominant to all other genes! For example, Enigma in leopard geckos is dominant to Wildtype - but to my knowledge it does NOT exist in the wild population. Near as I can tell it was a point mutation in a captive line.
> 
> ...


Thanks, i think i can understand that. On the last point are you saying color and pattern are chosen by different genetics with albinoism being selected by another trait?


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Lucifus said:


> Thanks, i think i can understand that. On the last point are you saying color and pattern are chosen by different genetics with albinoism being selected by another trait?


Not quite.

What I'm saying is that in most cases, *any* colour or pattern trait has its own gene pair to code it - for example, Tremper Albino is a different gene pair to Bell Albino, and both of those are different gene pairs to Rainwater albino. There are exceptions - like my edit about the White Snake complex in Royals, or Motley / Stripe in corn snakes... but generally, they're different gene pairs entirely.

Think of them not as "this gene codes for the colour of the animal" but "this gene codes for the correct production of a specific stage of a specific pigment". You can have multiple genes that code for the production of melanin, for example, and if one of these genes has a "faulty" pair, you'll get broken melanin production. Because there are different ways to 'break' the production, you get different genes that produce "broken-melanin" albino animals.


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## Lucifus (Aug 30, 2007)

Would explain stuff like Tremper Bells. Thanks for clearing it up. : victory:


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