Belly checker placement and coloration

[Edmund]

Two questions:

-Do all hypos have light, or faded, belly checkers?

-Is there a heterozygous trait identifiable by checker placement?

The reason I ask these questions is because I have an '04 corn that looks somewhere between a caramel and an amber, and he has odd belly markings. His checkers are dark and they flank the outsides of his stomach, leaving an unobstructed white space running the length of him. Seems like I read somewhere that this marking may mean a snake is het for motley or stripe (or both).

Thanks for any input!

 

[Serpwidgets]

Two questions:

-Do all hypos have light, or faded, belly checkers?

No. There are plenty of hypos with normal-looking belly checks. There are plenty of non-hypos with bronzed checks. This is one of the biggest myths out there, and people keep repeating it.

-Is there a heterozygous trait identifiable by checker placement?

No. It may mean that it's het for something, but it could be like that without being het for anything, so in the end, it is meaningless until you know its genotype.

 

[Edmund]

Thanks, Serp. That clears up my confusion.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Well, we all know that Serp is always right, but there are some genes that cause that kind of belly pattern. The problem is that they all look about the same, and like Serp said, it is possible to get that belly pattern without any mutant genes involved. I am not sure how we would know this, however; unless we bred a suspect to all possible causes of this pattern.

I only have experience with two genes that seem to cause this belly pattern. The Bloodred gene we all know can certainly cause this type of belly pattern as het. I have heard on this forum that the hets for Banded often exhibit this pattern as well.

You may have heard that the Striped Gene seems to cause this pattern from me. I haven’t had anybody challenge this theory or cooberated it either. I find it hard to believe that only my Striped Line causes this belly pattern as het. The belly pattern on your snake is pretty extreme. I have noticed that ALL of my known hets for Striped have a stripe down the middle of their belly on at least the last half of their belly. On some it is just a strip, and on others it looks like yours.

There are always those that don’t quite seem to fit the model and are questionable, but those are usually the poss hets for Striped. I am not saying that you can pick out possible hets, but there is an extremely high percentage of known hets for Striped that have a very distinctive stripe down the middle of their belly pattern. Since a Striped has a plain belly pattern, this would be consistent with a co-dominant type gene having an effect on the belly pattern. It is not much to go on, but co-dominant genes can be very variable and perhaps only show minimal signs of the co-dominance. The puzzling factor to me is that I do not see this with Hets for Motley, and if they are alleles, I would think they would have to be similar type genes, such as both recessive or both co-dominant. Some people do think they can see some pattern differences in Hets for Motley, so it is possible.

In the Corn Snake World we have lumped almost all of our mutant genes into a group of recessives, when in the Boa World they almost automatically lump them into a co-dominant group. Perhaps if the co-dominant effect with normal is very slight, we have been over looking the subtle differences and been classifying them as recessive when perhaps they are not.

I have been getting a lot of odd belly patterns from some of my Rich Z stock. It is a shot in the dark, but why not match them up with a Blood, Banded, or Striped and see if I can get a match?

 

[Matias]

I have two last year hatchlings from my striped x butter breeding and one of them has the white stripe in the middle of the belly all the way from head to tail, but the other has no sign of it. On the other hand I have one caramel (het. hypo + amel) which has the same white stripe (if you forget few black checkers in the tail). I doupt that it has nothing to do with bloodreds, bandeds or stripeds.

 

[Hurley]

Yep, hets for several of the pattern genes seem to cause a white line. Of course, there are those out there with white lines without hets of any of those pattern genes. I've got a whole line of them. What we know is that it's a good enough reason to start test crossing for the trait, but not solid enough or specific enough to say "White line always = het for striped" or "het for diffused/bloodred" or het for "trundlefart". (Speaking of trundlefart, where the heck has Clint Boyer been?)

Bronzed checkers and white lined bellies by themselves without genetic history or test crossing just aren't specific enough to call them anything. However, in my mind, the white lines at least are enough to make me start test crossing.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Joe, we've got a couple of hets from anery stripe X ultra. Neither of these have the white line. (I was REALLY hoping they would, but no dice...LOL)

Female

Male

There's some fading toward the center, and even a couple of "hints" in the female, but this seems to be everywhere in corns.

 

[Serpwidgets]

LOL Hurley, cut it out! :grin01:

 

[Hurley]

wut

Just because I post faster?
Learn to type.
:nyah:

LOL, sorry Serp. Perhaps I can be good and wait for permission to post. FLAMO

 

[ecreipeoj]

I am beginning to suspect that it is just something going on in my line, or everybody would be jumping all over the white line in Het Stripes theory. Without any history on the possible gene, it would be of no real value anyway, except to suspect a possible hidden gene.

I think we are all looking for little hints that some of the recessive genes that we have may be co-dominant, but if it is so subtle that we have to really look for it, it won’t be of any help to predict offspring. It will only be a fun to know genetic fact if we every get enough info to suggest co-dominant over recessive.

I think I have decided to breed most of my female Amel Motleys and Snow Motleys X Butter Motleys this year. I like the very high yellow in the Amel Motleys that are het for Butter, whether it is a co-dominant thing, or just selective breeding. It is a nice look either way and will produce a lot of outcrossed vigor in my Motleys.

Most of my Stripes and Het Stripes go back to a single male that I bought many years ago and have came from out crosses that have been recovered. What really got me thinking about this was an Ice X Anery Striped breeding I did last year. The Anery Striped was purchased from somebody else so is most likely not directly related to my old Striped Male. All eleven offspring from this breeding have extreme striped bellies. I do have some Lavas that have this belly pattern, so who knows. It may have came from them.