Just had a clutch hatch out, and all have now had a shed. Now, I reckon I must have forgotten to make the required sacrifices to the odds gods this year, as these came from a dragonfly clown x clown pairing, and I reckon they’re all just clowns… unless anyone can tell me different? Don’t think I’ve got any pins or pastels in here, but I’m notoriously bad at spotting fire… a couple of them have heavily reduced patterns and brighter sides, what do we think?
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I agree I do not see any pinstripe, pastel, or fire. Are you 100% positive on the parents genetics? Could you post some pictures of them? I believe it is also possible the clutch could be partho if the mom is the regular clown.
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I’ve not had them shed tested, just going on what the breeders told me… mum is the clown and is one of two sisters, I’m hoping for a clutch from the other before the summer is out
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As far as I can tell the ID on those snakes looks right. I am no expert on parthenogenesis, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that’s the most likely explanation. With the male having three incomplete dominant genes, it would be really improbable for none of the six babies to have even one of them. In a parthenogenetic clutch, the only thing the babies would be able to be is clown, because they wouldn’t have DNA from the dad.
My focus is corn snakes rather than BPs, so I’m usually just a lurker on the BP ID threads (because pretty snakes). Gotta chime in here, though. Odds are odds, not rules, and very long odds happen sometimes. I totally agree that the odds of a triple-visual-het animal not passing on one of those to six offspring are very small. It can still happen, and then some. Here’s an example. Last season I paired a female Butter (Amel + Caramel) Stripe 100% het Anery, Hypo to a Caramel Diffused male 66% ph Amel, 50% ph Anery, Stripe, ph Hypo. These are all recessive traits, but the female being visual for two being tested makes those analogous to your situation. Anery and Hypo are even less likely, with one parent het and the other ph. Both parents were virgins. In the first clutch I got 18 Caramels with nothing else visual. Figured the male must not have any of those pos hets after all. There was a tiny second clutch of two eggs; one was a Butter Stripe (proved two hets) and the other a Xanthic Snow Stripe (proved three hets).
TLDR: long odds happen. Unlikely though it seems, this male can still be the father. Seems more likely to me than partho, though of course that’s possible. Just checking, was the female ever with another male?
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Not since she’s been here, I’ve had her about a year. Agreed on the odds, I remind myself of the gambler’s fallacy… statistically, six clowns is just as likely as any other outcome, which I think is something like 0.0004%
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