Just out of curiosity, what’s the margin of error on the genetic testing? Is it 1%, less than 1%, etc.
Just curious if that’s been disclosed
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I’m not a math person so I don’t know this is exactly what you’re saying, but RGI have said that they don’t release a test (aside from the DG elimination test) until it is accurate to >99%.
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That helps narrow down what I was looking for. Thanks!
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FYI, one of the two pos het DG males I was breeding for a triple het axanthic clown desert ghost project came back het DGa. I consolidated all the females in that project under that male but it was for sure too late for some of them. But hopefully I can test out some triple het daughters from the male that hit DG.
I was also able to confirm a triple het DGb clown hypo 2022 holdback girl so waiting for a VPI axanthic test to retest her.
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Do they also test for super genes?
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RGI sticks with the genetic terminology heterozygous and homozygous. The snake industry term “super” is a homozygous for an incompletely dominant mutation. So if you tested a “super” black pastel, Mojave, or even leopard (might be considered a dominant mutation) your results would say homozygous.
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Which is fantastic and I love. “Super” is something other areas of breeding (horses, cats, dogs, etc.) never use - it’s a term the reptile community came up withwhich can be confusing because scientifically correct terminology is homozygous and heterozygous regardless of the mode of inheritance. Heterozygous always means one copy of a gene and homozygous always means two copies of the gene.
So yes, your het pied is het pied, but your mojave is also het mojave, and your super mojave is homozygous mojave.
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Hear hear! It makes for a learning curve when first dipping one’s toes in herp genetics, particularly if one’s used to talking about genetics in other circles. I secretly have always wondered if it came from people not wanting to abbreviate ‘homo’, because ‘hom’ is right there, or whether it was a marketing thing.
Does anyone have a sense of the etymology of using ‘super’ rather than ‘homozygous’ in herp circles? How did it start?
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I’ve been around long enough that I should know the history but can’t say for sure. I THINK that “super” was coined because the first mutations (albino in corn snakes and eventually Burmese pythons) were recessive. Snake people who were not necessarily very knowledgeable about genetics more generally got their heads wrapped around normal looking hets. So when the first incomplete dominant mutations came along it was assumed they were the also recessive. Then when two were bred together and a more extreme popped out unexpectedly a new term was invented for the super/extreme version. To this day lots of herpetoculture people believe het means hidden gene carriers because that’s how it works with recessives and they resist labeling say a pastel or a Mojave a “het”.
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Small correction. “Super” is a term that one highly influential, but scientifically ignorant, reptile breeder came up with and their influence unfortunately held sway. There are a LOT of incorrect (and some downright bad) things in this hobby that trace back to them
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Ooof, that sucks that one single person can embed something in the language just out of ignorance.
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I didn’t know that. I’ve been involved with corn snakes since 2008. Until Tessera, corn traits were recessive traits. The whole “super” thing was thoroughly embedded in herp world before it was a possible term in corns. As stated so many times in so many venues, it’s not scientifically correct. I have always wondered where it originated.
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Does anyone k ow or has anyone tried to use these test on burmese python morphs that exist in both species such as albino, or possibly piebald?
We know from the breeding of hybrids that the Albino gene in balls and Burms is the same
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Wondering if burm labyrinth = ball leopard and/or burm granite = ball monsoon. Since there is a ball leopard test already could someone try it on a labyrinth burm?
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How difficult is it to make an Albino Granite Burm? Because if Burm Granite and ball Monsoon are the same gene, then we would see the same linkage issue in Burms that Ben has warned about in balls
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Good point! I do see albino granite burms for sale. No idea if the first was unexpectedly hard to create. Probably shoots down my theory as to why monsoon has been so hard to find and that developing a burm granite test might be easier and work for monsoon.
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I have not done genetic testing yet. I’m a little old school and for me it used to be about seeing if I had the eye to pick out actual hets among possible hets. However, I just produced a clutch of babies that is such a mix, I am not yet sure what I have. The pairing was 0.1 Mojave Clown Het Hypo X 1.0 Chocolate Enchi Dbl Het Hypo/Clown. Of the six Clown combos I hit, none appear to be Hypo but they haven’t shed yet. The question is, would I recoup the cost of the test to be able to state it is 100% het Hypo vs 66% Het, in this current market? Also, I don’t believe there is a test for Chocolate yet, but correct me if I wrong. The last thing is both Enchi and Hypo, or the Het variation of it, will reduce the pattern. So are they just Enchi or Het Hypo, or both? I may just end up keeping one, and selling the others as what I can identify within reason. If the Buyer wants to spend the time and money, they may get a bonus and “Good on Them”.
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The price of testing has come down. Both vendors are running sales this month. However, it still adds up and might not be worth it as far as value added to those for sale animals. However, I often view testing as an investment in filtering my potential holdbacks. Basically way cheaper than raising up the wrong animal.
I do expect a chocolate test any time now. Grey Rider mentioned on a podcast to the effect that it’s ready just getting some final checks. I wouldn’t be surprised if RGI is also working on chocolate.
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