My Motley het Amel, Anery female has these throat stripes which my Amel Motley het Anery male does not have. I’ve now had three clutches from these two and all of the hatchlings have had some variation of the throat stripes. Is this just something that they can have or is it genetic? Thanks
7 Likes
I never had a corn with throat stripes, it is interesting! I think it is more of a line bred genetic trait, not like a recessive or co dominant. I think some offspring will get these, some won’t. And the offspring that do can probably pass it on as well that way. If you really wanted to prove it, I would breed her with a male baby with throat stripes, see what happens. Maybe they will all have them, maybe more of them or who knows? Some traits like okeetee are more line bred, just kept breeding certain locals together for the thick black outlines you know. Not all genetics are recessive or co dominant. Cool anyway!
2 Likes
Thanks, this is the 3rd clutch I’ve had from them and all of the hatchlings have the throat stripes, the mum has them, the dad doesn’t. And definitely something to think about, thanks
3 Likes
That’s interesting. I am scratching my head and trying to recall throat stripes on any of mine. I know I haven’t had or seen any throat markings on any of my Motley or Stripe snakes.
If you’re seeing it in parents and in offspring, it is being passed down genetically. Anything inherited is generic, though as @banereptiles correctly points out there’s much more to genetics than just basic dominant, recessive, codominant, etc. There are many morphs which are the result of multiple alleles interacting in ways we don’t completely understand. Line bred traits are certainly examples of this.
Have any of the offspring who have these throat stripes been bred yet? I’m actually guessing that this is dominant.
1 Like
This is what I was thinking and no they haven’t, this is only the second year I’ve bred them, and last year was my first year breeding at all, so they were all sold on, the adults are pets more than anything, but this trait caught my eye when it happened again and i actually started to think about it
2 Likes
What does the female’s dorsal pattern look like? Anything odd going on there? Tessera’s ventral patterns are known to be all over the place, from clear white to scattered checkers to normal checkers to super heavily checkered. Seems to me that I’ve seen some Tesseras with something similar to your girl’s throat markings but I’m not certain.
If it were me, I’d breed her to a different motley male next time and see what happened. That’s a first step. If those babies have the throat stripes, you’re almost surely looking at a dominant trait. (I say “almost surely” bc in science, nothing is sure until it’s proven.) Time to keep some babies for further breeding trials.
Of course, keeping records and doing breeding trials is a lot of work. It also may mean keeping more snakes than you want to deal with. Also, proving a trait doesn’t necessarily mean that the trait is going to be the next hot, pricey thing. But I would have to test it, because.
2 Likes
Thank you and she has a solid white belly with no chequers that has a gradient into the normal red colour, same for the male I have. I dont really have the space to investigate further into it sadly like I would want to but did want to see if it just meant there was a morph in them I wasn’t aware of, maybe further down the line I’ll be able to
2 Likes
Sounds like she and he have a normal Motley ventrum except for the female’s throat area. To the best of my knowledge those throat stripes don’t signify anything recognized. There are some oddities which crop up from time to time, like so-called “plain belly,” which is when a normally patterned snake not carrying Motley, Stripe or Diffused has a belly without checkers. I had one of those turn up. Those don’t generally pass it on to F1s, certainly not 100% as your girl seems to be doing. It’s interesting.
2 Likes