Hypo/Strawberry Corn Snake Genetic Calculator Issue

Hello all, I am wondering why the MM Genetic Calculator blocks some combinations of Hypo, Strawberry, and their hets. Since they are both recessive it seems that it should work. Can anyone shed some light here? Thanks!

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Can you post a picture?

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Hypo and strawberry are allelic. What combination are you trying to input? So for instance, you can’t have homozygous strawberry and het hypo in one snake, so the calculator will give you an error.

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As @solarserpents has said, these morphs are allelic.

While you might think that because two morphs are recessive, there should be no issues combining them, this isn’t the case with allelic morphs. Because these mutations share the same spot on the chromosome, there is no way when combining them for there to exist two copies of both genes. You will either end up with an animal that is homozygous Hypo, homozygous Strawberry, or with one copy of each giving you a third possible visual expression known as Hypoberry.

Hypo/Strawberry aren’t the only other allelic morphs (these are also known as complexes), there is also Scaleless/Microscale, as well as Motley/Stripe.

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I don’t have a picture, but I’m starting to get the picture, lol! With the two being allelic, the usual rules of combining recessive traits don’t apply. I just have to study on it and wrap my head around the concept.

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I thought the name “Solar Serpents” looked familiar, I have a few of your het Cinders on my wish list! The allelic thing is starting to make sense to me. The fact that I have to learn and understand the science of the genetics before I can apply them to create the living art is the reason I love this hobby!

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Agreed! It’s a great mix of science, creativity, and some random chance thrown on top! The morphpedia has more info about most of the base mutations, but feel also feel free to ask anything else that you’re not sure of.

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Actually, the usual rules still apply. One copy of any of the allelic traits is a recessive het, unexpressed like any other recessive het. Two copies from the allelic complex are expressed, again, just like any recessive trait. The only thing is, there are differences in expression (phenotype) of the possible combos. Homozygous Srawberry, or Hypo, or Hypoberry look different from one another but their inheritance still follows normal Mendelian patterns. One just has to know that they’re alleles.

That’s a pretty darned good summary of the fascination of breeding!

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