Quote:
Originally posted by lnwolf88
I am still figuring out the genetics stuff and I understand that a heterozugous carrier will appear normal masking the recessive trait. But can a homozygous animal carry hetrozygous genes?
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If an animal is homozygous for something, by definition it is not possible to be heterozygous for the same thing. It's an either/or situation.
If you have two coins laying on a table, they are either:
1- Heads/Heads
2- Heads/Tails
3- Tails/Tails
1 and 3 are homozygous. 2 is heterozygous.
That is, "homo" means
same, and "hetero" means
different.
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"Can a homozygous animal carry heterozygous genes?" Hmm... I think I know what you're asking. Break down the "genotype" into a bunch of pairs of coins. Say you have 2 pennies, 2 nickels, 2 dimes, 2 quarters. If the pennies are both on heads, can you have a nickel on tails? Certainly.
You could say that the "Amel" trait is determined by the pennies. Anery is determined by the nickels, Motley by the quarters, and Hypo by the dimes.
The pennies have no relationship to--or dependency on--the other coins... this is how cornsnake traits intermingle: they are independent of each other.
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The best variety could be achieved by having as many "het X mutant" crosses in the same pair as possible. That is, have one parent heterozygous for a given trait and the other parent expressing (homozygous for) that same trait. For example:
Hypo motley snow X Normal het hypo/motley/amel/anery
or
Ghost het amel/motley X Amel motley het anery/hypo
or
Hypo motley het amel/anery X Snow het hypo/motley
etc.
All of those crosses (and any of the 16 possible ways to do that cross) give half hypos, half motleys, half amels, half anerys.
Yeah, that's a lot of halves, eh? But they are independent so you get a 16 way split of:
Normal
Anery
Amel
Snow
Motley
Motley Anery
Motley Amel
Motley Snow
Hypo
Ghost
Amel *
Snow *
Hypo Motley
Ghost Motley
Motley Amel *
Motley Snow *
* - hypo is present but not necessarily visible or detectable.
The biggest trick is actually finding the genotypes you want...