Hey, does anyone out there know a lot about the family tree, and what happens when you breed different morphs of ball pythons?
I’m not sure exactly what you are asking. Do you understand the basic genetics of dominant, co dom, and recessive genes? Before you even think about breeding I recommend that you look into basic genetics and get a good understanding of it. What do you also mean by family tree? I just want to be sure I understand your question.
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I don’t completely know about all of the basic genetics, but that is really why I am here asking. By the family tree, I am talking about the first ball python morph that was ever a thing and what they bred it with to get the next morph and so on.
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The first morphs were basic co doms like pastel, spider, and jungle. When you breed ball pythons that have different morphs it does not mean you are creating a new morph, you are simply creating a ball python with different genes all in one snake. As far as getting a good understanding of genetics I recommend watching youtube videos from well known breeders.
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Thank you! I’m starting to put the pieces together, but I’m still a bit lost. So when I see “Het”, is that the recessive genes that will be passed down to the offspring? Also, what does 50% het mean? I will be scavenging the internet for more info, thanks again!
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Het (short for heterozygous) means that the snake has one copy of the that trait, as opposed to homozygous which means two copies. So a visual piebald has two copies, but if you paired it to normal, all of the babies would have one copy (from the pied parent) and would be 100% hets. They wouldn’t look pied, because it’s a recessive trait. If you then crossed a het to a normal (or another morph that wasn’t pied), the offspring would be 50% hets, which means they have a 50% change of being hets because there was a 50% chance of them receiving the pied gene from the parent. Does that make sense?
Traits that are dominant or co-dominant are visible when only one copy is present, traits that are recessive are visual only when there are two copies
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I will just stick this hear and you can waste away your hours listening to me babble on about genetics for as long as you can stand to hear my voice LOL
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Ok, I think I understand now. So… let’s say I breed a normal with a killer bee banana 50% het axanthic, right? The normal is a dominant gene and the killer bee is co dominant. There is a higher chance of there being more normals, though the chances of it being very slim: it could possibly be the other way around. The het means it is not visual, but the gene is still there. So 50% of the clutch is going to have the recessive gene, is this right?
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Almost but not quite. Wild type aka “normal” is not a gene and even if it was it wouldn’t be dominant and breeding a 50% het to a non het of that same recessive you wouldn’t end of with half of them being het. Instead all of the babies will be possible het. Some may be het and some wont. Or they may all be het but you will never know until you prove them out later down the line.
I think this may help a little.
100% het X 100% het = 25% of babies will be visual and the normals will be 66% het
Visual X het = half babies will be visual and half will be 100%
50% het X normal = poss het offspring (babies will have to be proven out)
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I would also suggest playing around with the genetic calculator on morphmarket. You can plug in the genes of your animals and see the possibilities of what they will produce.
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So a killer bee banana is actually a super pastel (two copies of pastel) plus spider and banana, and each of these traits can assort independently. The 50% het axanthic means there’s a 50% chance that your snake has one copy of the axanthic gene. The only way you will know for sure is by pairing that snake to the same type of axanthic and seeing if it proves out. However from that cross you would get…
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Yes, this definitely helps! Thank you!
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So the 50% means it has a 50% chance that the snake has one copy of the axanthic gene. I’ve seen a lot of snakes listed as poss ____. Is that just saying that it’s possibly and then the gene? How is it a super pastel?
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Yes, a 50% pos het means that there’s a 50% chance that it’s het and there’s a 50% chance that it’s not het. Pastel is a heterozygous gene, if a snake has 1 copy of pastel then it’s pastel, if a snake has 2 copies of it then it will be a super pastel. A super pastel paired with a normal will produce all pastels. All morphs either have a super or a het form but not both (even though they haven’t all been produced), for example there is a pastel and super pastel but there isn’t going to be a het pastel. Inc-dom and dominant genes all have super forms along with regular. Recessive traits are going to have het and regular. You can’t have a het for an inc-dom or dominant trait and you can’t have a super for a recessive trait.
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Exactly, it’s a probability that the snake has the gene. Whenever you see anything labeled as “pos het” it means possibly heterozygous for that gene, no guarantees. You have to prove it out to see
A “Killerbee” is basically the combo name for “super pastel spider” - most combos with “killer” are super pastel and “bee” combos have spider
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Ooooooh. Ok, now I get it. Thanks!
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I understand it for the most part, if it has 50% poss het, then it’s like a mystery until you breed it. Just to be sure, if they are visual then they aren’t het, if they aren’t visual then they are het, right?
Yes, exactly.
For the most part, yes.
Here’s a list of the morphs and whether or not they are dominant or recessive and different forms of the morph for each, it might help you out some.
This should also help some.
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All of this is exactly what I’m looking for, so thank you so much… And, I think that’s all the questions I have!
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