# Boas - Working with Salmon Motleys? - Interesting read



## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

This is taken from an american forum



> Mike,
> 
> CONGRATS on an AWESOME litter. There are many things going on with the Hypo Motley that I have told a few people. I just didn't understand how or why it was doing this with the MOTLEY and not the hypo Jungle or the hypo Arabesque. Until last year and this year I have yet to confirm it with numbers.
> 
> ...


So If your looking to produce Sunglow motleys from breeding hypo motleys het bino to bino's or het binos it looks like it cant happen that way

What are your thoughts on this

Chris


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## jonnyboy (Apr 22, 2008)

my thoughts are - confused


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## Metal_face (Oct 2, 2008)

im confused too :whistling2:


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## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

Hypo (salmon) is co dominant - so when you breed a salmon with a normal you have a 50% chance of each baby being salmon & 50 % chance of it being normal 

Motley is also Co-dom so again same rule applies

but what they are saying here is that if you breed a salmon motley with a normal you will only get either salmons or motleys no salmon motleys and no normals

Furthermore 

If you have a salmon motley het albino and you breed it with an albino you will produce albino motleys or sunglows & albinos but not sunglow motleys or hypo motleys het albinos- WEIRD


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## ian kerr (May 12, 2006)

ez4pro said:


> Hypo (salmon) is co dominant - so when you breed a salmon with a normal you have a 50% chance of each baby being salmon & 50 % chance of it being normal
> 
> Motley is also Co-dom so again same rule applies
> 
> ...


this is exactlly the point when genetics goes AWOL lol!
heard afew stories lately bout boa genetics going wierd
just shows were ALL still learning!
regards ian


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## penfold (Sep 9, 2007)

any one got decent photo of the red devil


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## Darren25 (Oct 4, 2008)

So basically the common gene isn't dominant?


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## goldenburm (Jan 7, 2007)

no as I believe none have lived?!??!


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## penfold (Sep 9, 2007)

if none have lived not a lot of point in produceing it as its a very week snake


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## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

penfold said:


> if none have lived not a lot of point in produceing it as its a very week snake


 
The thing I took from this is that producing a sunglow motley isnt possible with a Hypo motley het bino crossed with a albino or het albino - The better snake to go for is a motley het albino and breed that with either a dh sunglow or a sunglow


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## samg1696 (Oct 20, 2008)

my knowledge stops at albino lol


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## spear85 (Jan 4, 2009)

*boa*

hi i got a vary small boa about 5 weeks ago i was told he is 18 months old he wont eat he is vary skini and the skin is vary loose and he dont grip old when u have hold of him but he dos move around ok in is viv if eny 1 can help


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## ian kerr (May 12, 2006)

spear85 said:


> hi i got a vary small boa about 5 weeks ago i was told he is 18 months old he wont eat he is vary skini and the skin is vary loose and he dont grip old when u have hold of him but he dos move around ok in is viv if eny 1 can help


is he a motley het albino/sunglow/or maybe a red devil!
sorry nobody can help here cos our genetics just got shot down!!!!!!!!!!
DOH! im doing crack again!


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## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

spear85 said:


> hi i got a vary small boa about 5 weeks ago i was told he is 18 months old he wont eat he is vary skini and the skin is vary loose and he dont grip old when u have hold of him but he dos move around ok in is viv if eny 1 can help


Hey buddy - repost this as a thread of its own- you will get some feedback and advice

Cheers

Chris


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## Phil Barnaby (Oct 22, 2008)

penfold said:


> if none have lived not a lot of point in produceing it as its a very week snake


 Because you can then say that you got something noone else has.

The fact that something in the genetics is non-survivable sometimes makes me wonder at the mentality of the people involved in these breeding projects.


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## penfold (Sep 9, 2007)

i dont think id bother some how surely further breeding from it would be even weeker:bash:


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## lukendaniel (Jan 10, 2007)

penfold said:


> i dont think id bother some how surely further breeding from it would be even weeker:bash:


 

As far as i know only the one has ever been produced and it was DOA. so untill a few more are produced we will not know if it is a a week morph or not 



luke


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## ez4pro (Sep 19, 2007)

penfold said:


> i dont think id bother some how surely further breeding from it would be even weeker:bash:


I guess the original was quite in bred, Im sure they will be out crossing then crossing back to see if it is viable.


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## Metal_face (Oct 2, 2008)

samg1696 said:


> my knowledge stops at albino lol


same here lol


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

By the sound of it, Motley and Hypo are two flavours of the same gene and are codominant to each other - like Mojave and Lesser are in royal pythons, or like Ultra and Amel are in corns.

That would explain the results the breeders are getting - if Hypo and Motley exist on the same gene pair.


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## paulh (Sep 19, 2007)

Need the number of babies. Otherwise, it is imposssible to be certain whether Hypo and motley share the same location in the genome or not. The results might be an artifact from the luck of the draw and a relatively small number of babies. There is a lot of guesswork going on here.

One parent might be homozygous for one of the mutants. That would also explain the lack of normal babies.

Another possible explanation for the red devil is that it was a premature birth, and color/pattern was not fully developed.

Interesting problems. The snakes will tell us the answer eventually, after more data is collected.


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## Sharpman (Feb 21, 2007)

penfold said:


> i dont think id bother some how surely further breeding from it would be even weeker:bash:


the reason none have been born alive is from what ive heard it was a premature litter so you cannot say the red devil is week and there is no reason to think this until others have been produced


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## GazEmm (Jul 11, 2006)

What exactly are the genetics for a 'red devil'?


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## carisma02uk (Sep 14, 2006)

super motley hypo

Jon


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## GazEmm (Jul 11, 2006)

Obviously little is known of them then but whats the idea of their visual appearance? Im guessing an almost solid orangey colour boa??


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## intravenous (Dec 20, 2006)

Ssthisto said:


> By the sound of it, Motley and Hypo are two flavours of the same gene and are codominant to each other - like Mojave and Lesser are in royal pythons, or like Ultra and Amel are in corns.
> 
> That would explain the results the breeders are getting - if Hypo and Motley exist on the same gene pair.


Or they could be linked I guess...its hard to know either way without a proper history.


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## leeh1985 (Dec 6, 2006)

I know this is a differnet subject regarding mixed breeding but would something simular happen with jungles boas i.e hypo jungle motleys x normal etc or am I wrong?


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## GazEmm (Jul 11, 2006)

lhreptiles said:


> I know this is a differnet subject regarding mixed breeding but would something simular happen with jungles boas i.e hypo jungle motleys x normal etc or am I wrong?


I think its just the hypo and motley that seems to cause the unusual outcomes, i'd _imagine_ the jungle gene would act as 'normal' if added to the mix.


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## leeh1985 (Dec 6, 2006)

So what you are saying is potentionally the jungle gene could be a neutral when mixed with hypo & motley gene? I would imagine that if the hypo & Motley gene was mixed and bringing out different results surely a three way co - dom gene would be even more confusing in the genectics or could I be wrong as one may cancel out the other then you would be able to possibly create something different with out the potentional threat of the babies dying?


Does this sound right or am I wrong?


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## Mason (Jan 21, 2008)

no one is going to guess the answer here. You have to realise the "snake breeder morph version" of genetics is very, very simplified and doens't paint a true picture. This isn't just limited to boas either, some royal morphs are proving to work ( or rather: Not work according to how the simplified 'morph genetics' rules say it should) like super stripes. YB x spectre/whirlwind(or whatever you want to call it) = super stripe. Super stripe x normal will not produce any spectres like "the rules" say it should. If this confuses anyone then the following anology is in simpler terms and using common morphs.



You are doing the equivalent of trying to use high school science to fix a nuclear power plant. Genetics are not as simple as X + Y = Z we just try and make it seem to for the purpose of breeding/selling snakes (and other animals)

Genetics goes much deeper than co-dom, dom, recessive etc. Unfortunately there will always be things that don't fit "the rules" as they are generally accepted.

The things i'm aware of so far include Hypo motley AND hypo jungle in boas, and the super stripe and platty daddy/lesser thing in royals. There will be more.


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## leeh1985 (Dec 6, 2006)

I agree with what you are saying, I supppose all we can do is wait until more of these morphs are bred and wait for the outcome on these.


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## GazEmm (Jul 11, 2006)

Actually producing a hypo motley is as we would imagine mind, right? i.e. cross and hypo with a motley and you'll get a percentage of hypo motleys? (i've never been good with working out the percentages, i think this would be 25% mind?).

I absolutely adore motleys and have seen a few pics of hypo motleys and they are even better...better still are the 'super' motleys!! I am very tempted to purchase a motley a little later in the year :whistling2:

What im getting at is does our simplified version of genetics apply when it comes to creating just hypo motleys and 'super' motleys? (these are the two im interested in and i'd probably stop at this point)...it just gets more confusing when breeding hypo motleys together?


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## lukendaniel (Jan 10, 2007)

well not this current season but nxt season we will be breeding our male hypo motley het albino so i will keep people updated on rhe outcomes even tho it is a year away 



luke


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## leeh1985 (Dec 6, 2006)

I have to admit that the motley has always intrigued me so may have to look into getting one to put in with my Salmons & Albino. :whistling2:


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## bothrops (Jan 7, 2007)

First of all some topical eye candy

motley









Albino motley









super motley









albino super motley









hypo motley









super hypo motley (AKA 'red devil')









IMAGES FROM JEREMY STONE (boaconstrictor.com)



Phil Barnaby said:


> Because you can then say that you got something noone else has.
> 
> The fact that something in the genetics is non-survivable sometimes makes me wonder at the mentality of the people involved in these breeding projects.





penfold said:


> i dont think id bother some how surely further breeding from it would be even weeker:bash:


Don't start with the judging folks! There's no evil here! This is a standard morph breeding project that has turned out harder than expected. The incompatibility of hypo/motley from the same animal and the nature of the combo make this a very hard animal to produce. It just so happens that the first ever litter to contain one happened to be premature and the first ever red devil was still born. IN NO WAY does that 'prove' that this is a lethal gene, or that there is anything wrong with the animal. It could well be purely coincidence (many well-outcrossed 'normal' boa litters have still-borns and prematures and 'weak' offspring, but no-one kicks off about 'we shouldn't breed normal boas do they?) You can not infer anything from a single animal.

I am not saying there isn't potentially a problem, but we will learn nothing if we stop now. Further breeding is essential for the advancement knowledge. It could even be that the 'red-devil' in the above pic isn't even actually a hypo super motley but a random non-pigmented or maldeveloped snake and that a hypo super motely can not even exist as the two mutations share a locus (see below)



Ssthisto said:


> By the sound of it, Motley and Hypo are two flavours of the same gene and are codominant to each other - like Mojave and Lesser are in royal pythons, or like Ultra and Amel are in corns.
> 
> That would explain the results the breeders are getting - if Hypo and Motley exist on the same gene pair.


I would put money on it! except..

It is only when one parent carries both mutations that it only passes one or the other to each offspring (i.e. hypo motley to normal). If you breed a motley to a hypo you can (and do) get what you would expect in normal co-dom mating, i.e. normals, motleys, hypos and hypo motleys. That fits the theory perfectly. but...

The only problem is that the red devil has been produced (albeit SB)(probably - see above comment!). If the animal is indeed a supermotley hypo then this begs the question as to how the animal managed to fit three alleles (two alleles for motley and one for hypo) into a single pair of loci?

This would suggest that there is actually two loci involved here motley and hypo, but they are definitley 'connected' in some way...

I guess we may get a few more tantalising clues this year as I'm sure it's not just Jeremy trying for these and I think we may be on for some illumination from this years breeding trials.

Cheers

Andy


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