Genetic Testing

[alalarbr]

I started breeding about 2 yrs ago and this is something that’s been always crossing my mind , has anybody tried testing the genetics of their snakes , i mean like DNA testing , i just see a lot of morphs coming out all the time and i wonder if they are actually new genes , how the breeders are so sure that they have a new gene or who approves of the new gene , people claim to have a new gene and they put it out on the market at crazy prices but who actually verifies they have something new and no just something basic ?

[eaglereptiles]

DNA testing is a real thing, even with reptiles, though it is costly.

@t_h_wyman

is DNA testing a thing for snakes? Can you tell exactly what genes are present and work out it’s exact morph/heritage or does that need a huge database of sorts to start with?

Yes, DNA testing is a thing for snakes but no, not at the level you are talking about.

Ben Morrill/Reptile Genetic Services offers sexing services from sheds for some species, primarily colubrids.

In theory, it is possible to build up a database like you describe however would be extremely cost-prohibitive. Sequencing in and of itself is pretty cheap these days but fully annotating a genome is no small task and then you have to comparatively analyze the genomes of every known mutation back against the wild-type genome, identify the mutation, which may be as minor as a single “letter” change out of around 1,500,000 “

@t_h_wyman

Do you see this being something that is ever going to be attempted?

I was raised to never say never, but pythons are not exactly an animal that garners a huge amount of scientific interest so it is not likely. Maybe in some not-to-distant future, when genomic sequencing and analysis becomes as cheap/easy/mundane as computers are now, hobbyists can take on the task.
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eaglereptiles:

• Is genetic modification a possibility with them?
• If so, to what extent?

The pedant in me would answer that the acts of selective breeding that we engage in would constitute as “genetic modification”. But I am guessing you are asking more along the lines of exogenous gene transfer and CRISPR and the like? I do not know that anyone has ever tried with snakes but there is no reason that the established methods of genetic engineering should not work, genetics is genetics is genetics. They have successfully used CRISPR to mutate anoles.
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eaglereptiles:

Could we take it too far with morphs to the point it’s just no longer a royal python and needs its own species name? Where no matter what it is bred with, it will not produce a normal wild type looking royal python. Or will there always be that “I’m a python” genome being passed on?

Over geologic time frames, sure we could drift them away from being canonical P. regius the same way we drifted dogs away from wolves. However, consider how long humans have been domesticating dogs and they (mostly) still easily back-breed to wolves. So, to all intents and purposes, they will always be P. regius no matter how morphed out we make them.
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Here is a link to that topic.

[t_h_wyman]

Thanks Eagle for transposing my previous into here, saves my fingers

Al,

Aside from the above, with what you are talking about it is more based on breeding out animals with some kind of phenotype and seeing if it is an actual heritable trait. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. As far as it being something new versus something basic… There is a long discussion there and you can certainly pick your side of the argument depending on how you feel. As an example of how it can be - there are no fewer than five independently imported lines of BlkPastel but everyone seems pretty happy to call all of them BlkPastel. Flipside, we have Banana and CoralGlow which were imported independently by two different people that were not each aware of the other until after the fact so one called it one thing and the other called it something different to keep them “personal” projects. Other flipside, there are Fires and Sulfurs and Embers and Motas and Bright and Flame and DesertLemons and Lemonbacks and Lucifers and I am sure I am forgetting a couple that all make a superform that is a black-eyed leucistic and even though many of them were “discovered” after the initial Fire lineage was well established, we call them all different things because… Some sort of reason…