Just a couple questions

[KephrenJorgensen]

I am definitely too excited to have another litter of scrubs, and am just so fascinated by polymorphism. I'm wondering how/if gender affects the outcome of morphology in the offspring. For example, to cross two morphs of one species, would a different morph be more dominant in a different gender, or does it all come into play in the dominance of the genes? I am curious to find out what happens when you breed two erythristics with two melanistics (ordinoides) and then breed their offspring. Any ideas on what would be the outcome?

[guidofatherof5]

Whatever it produces they will be beautiful. They're T.ordinoides (Northwesterns)

[KephrenJorgensen]

I know XP I'm going to post pictures of the scrubs I have now in a previous photo thread I've done later on today. Since they have all shed atleast 3 times now, they're lifestyle seems to have changed. Instead of hiding except for food, water, and thermoregulation, now they cuddle up at the highest point of the enclosure and bask in the "sun" for the majority of the day, and then roam around for a couple hours straight until I turn off the light. They go to bed as soon as the lights go out, its funny. Turn off the light for 10 seconds, turn it back on and they are gone.

[ConcinusMan]

I am definitely too excited to have another litter of scrubs, and am just so fascinated by polymorphism. I'm wondering how/if gender affects the outcome of morphology in the offspring. For example, to cross two morphs of one species, would a different morph be more dominant in a different gender, or does it all come into play in the dominance of the genes? I am curious to find out what happens when you breed two erythristics with two melanistics (ordinoides) and then breed their offspring. Any ideas on what would be the outcome?

Other than having a high potential for them having melanistic or erythristic offspring, no, the outcome isn't very predictable. The melanistic trait in ordinoides is a single-allele recessive trait which overrides any other color genes. In other words, regardless of what other color genes they carry, if the offspring inherit the melanistic gene from both parents, they will be melanistic. The erythristic ones appear to be polygenic. In populations where they occur, the degree of expression and inheritance can vary widely. They could be very red like flicker, or they could just show a red stripe and some red blotches.

Other than the melanistic trait or albino, the outcome is rather unpredictable since the outward appearance of normal ordinoides depends on many alleles in combination and the outward appearance will vary depending on which alleles are inherited, which ones are dominant or codominant, and how they interact with each other. There are so many alleles involved in the color and pattern of T. ordinoides that it's very difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy, what a normal pairing will produce. You can however, select for certain traits over generations and that will increase the occurrence of the traits you select, but there will always be some variation.

For example, the red stripe girl I had, gave birth to 7 offspring, 6 of which survived. Some of them inherited her red stripe. The color developed as they grew. But some only developed a few red flecks in the stripe. If I were to select only the reddest stripes for breeding, I could increase the occurrence of that trait in their offspring but there will always be some that don't inherit it, or at least, don't show it in their outward appearance because of another color allele interfering or overriding it such as, gene for a yellow stripe instead of red. If you selectively breed them over generations you'll begin to figure out which colors are dominant and which ones are hard to select for. The erythristic trait does seem to be dominant in populations where it occurs. Where I find them, I see a lot of red. And the reason there's so many melanistics on Vancouver Island is that even though it's a recessive trait, they are genetically isolated. At some point in the past, there may have only been a very few snakes on the island and they all (or most) carried the gene.

Melanistics do occur elsewhere on the mainland and all across the northwest, but those populations aren't genetically isolated and so it's occurrence is somewhat rare.

[KephrenJorgensen]

Very helpful infromation. Thank you! I will most likely selectively breed the high-reds with eachother then, and the same with the melanistics. Keep the bloodline of the traits strong.

[ConcinusMan]

Unfortunately this often means you have to hold back all offspring until they are mature then select which ones to breed. Selecting at birth just won't work since red comes in as they mature and just about all northwesterns are born a different color than they will be as adults. Its more straightforward for melanistics though since they will either be melanistic at birth, or het melanistic.

[KephrenJorgensen]

It wont be SO unfortunate watching the little ones mature, but I see your point. I have a lot of time to prepare though, so I'm doing everything I can.

[ConcinusMan]

There's nothing at all wrong with letting nature do much of the selecting for you. If I were going to take on a project such as breeding for red northwesterns I would start by selecting mature specimens from a population already exhibiting a high degree of erythrism. Using choice specimens from such a population would be preferable over using a red snake that popped up randomly in a population that is not predominantly red.

"Keeping bloodlines strong" is not synonymous with "keeping bloodlines pure". I hope people understand that artificial selection over generations also selects for detrimental non-visible traits. See "Inbreeding depression".

If you really want to produce a strong and pure bloodline of say erythristic northwesterns, then work with nature. Use the finest representatives of the trait taken from the wild. Keep some CB babies until they're mature. Keep the best colored ones and every few generations, outcross them with the best colored ones from that same wild population. In other words, you can guide the outcome by controlling which snakes pair up, without interfering with the naturally fit wild gene pool. You can improve on the color without inbreeding too much.

I also hope you understand that you will accomplish practically nothing if you're not dedicated to it and intend to commit to the project for many snakey-generations to come. Such things don't happen overnight. Some of our CB morphs are just lucky random traits that pop up. Still others more took many years of work and dedication to come about.

You're not going to come up with a "super-awsome high red line" of northwesterns in just 5-10 years unless you just stumble onto one that already exists.

[chris-uk]

Aren't all genetic morphs just random, lucky events? I consider that there is a difference between line breeding and the occurrence of a new spontaneous morph.
A high red line will take generations to produce, it's essentially the same process that produced the variety of dog breeds over hundreds/thousands of years. A new morph is a genetic mutation that occurs spontaneously in an individual (e.g. A new albino strain), or gets expressed when we get lucky and put a male and female who carry a rare recessive trait together (e.g. possibly what happened with Steve B&W radix, or Sjoerd's mercury parietalis).

Good information Richard, other than the minor quibble above I agree with everything you said.

[ConcinusMan]

Aren't all genetic morphs just random, lucky events?

Gee, I'm not sure, do you feel "lucky" to be alive?