Palmetto is Incomplete Dominant [DONE]

Just to hammer the point home, the Morphpedia lists Don Soderberg/South Mountain Reptiles as the founder of the Palmetto gene, and even he is currently listing animals as 66.6% Pos het Palmetto.

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I know I made a post about this in the past. I’ll have to look around and find it. But yes, I agree that the way Palmetto is currently programmed into the marketplace is problematic. I personally have no problem with the use of “super” to describe homozygous dominant or incomplete dominant traits (for instance, I commonly use the term ‘super masque’ or ‘super red factor’ for the homozygous expression of those incomplete dominant traits), but the corn snake hobby as a whole has not adopted ‘super Palmetto’ as the term they want to use for homozygous Palmetto corns. Being unable to properly list poss het Palmettos is frustrating and most of the homozygous Palmetto ads are listed just as ‘Palmetto’, not ‘super Palmetto’, which makes searching for the exact genes you want a bit difficult. And the sellers who correctly list their homozygous Palmettos as ‘super Palmetto’ may be missing out on some sales when people looking to buy a visual Palmetto only search for the trait tagged as ‘Palmetto’.

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Your right, it seems I completely missed what you were saying here, my apologise. This makes sense and I’m now following.

While I agree that there is a need for a “pos” tag for inc-dom traits, going back through this entire thread I feel like the best thing to do for the entire community here would be to undo the reclassification of the trait back to recessive…?

I would say that this is similar to Piebald or Clown in ball pythons. A good percent of the hets have some “markers”, but not all.

Just to clear this part up. Super Enchi is visually different than a Enchi (inc dom), whereas a Super pin would look the same as a pin (dom).

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Your understanding of the term “Super” is mistaken

First, we need to start with the fact that “Super” is an illegitimate term created and used only within the hobby and has exactly zero scientific merit.

Second, the term itself had its origin from the ball python side of the hobby from an individual who has consistently proven their fundamental lack of understanding of genetics and their contempt for those that try to correct them

“Super”, as it is used in the hobby, denotes a homozygous animal for either a dominant or an incomplete-dominant mutation. BluEL and SuperEnchi and SuperPin and RedAxanthic are the same inasmuch as they are all homozygous but three of the four are inc-dom and it is simply colloquial usage within the hobby that “defines” the names. I could just as easily refer to a BluEL as a SuperButter and be perfectly correct. Similarly, I could say homozygous Pin as SuperPin. Neither are wrong, both are correct. And, most importantly, in both cases it matters not one whit what terminology someone uses because it does not change the actual genetics of how the trait is passed on. Whether or not someone understands the difference… That comes down to their willingness to educate themselves on the morphs they are working with
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No, it absolutely does not.

Using that terminology carries the implication that you are no longer dealing with an inc-dom trait and are looking at a recessive. Someone’s inability to identify the presence/absence of a trait does not make it a poss het, more often then not it means that they either do not have enough experience working with the gene in question, do not actually understand the genetics of the morph they are working with, or the presence of other genes are muddying the waters. The latter is just something people have to accept when working with certain genes. The prior two require that people care enough to educate themselves. If people wish to ignore facts and perpetuate an incorrect information, that is their choice. But MM works to raise the collective education of the community as a whole and does not support the perpetuation of bad/incorrect/outdated information
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Just because someone in a perceived elevated position uses wrong information does not justify perpetuation of that information. That is what got the ball hobby into a lot of trouble and what many of us have spent nearly a decade fighting to correct
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I will refer to my above statement about the colloquial usage of the term “Super” within the hobby.

Within the ball hobby there are some dozen alleles in the incomplete-dominant blue-eyed Leucistic group. I will use three of these to illustrate the fluidity of terminology in our hobby

Normal - Phantom - SuperPhantom

Normal - het Russo - SuperRusso

Normal - Butter - BluEL

Normal - Phantom - … … …
… … … - Butter - Karma

The number of mutant genes in each series is 0 - 1 - 2. The genes are, fundamentally, the same (i.e., inc-dom) and yet each and every series uses different terminology for whichever status we are referring to. And still, all of them are perfectly correct

The usage of the different terms does not change the identity of the genetic heritability, it is just a matter of understanding the colloquial usage of the terms that you need to understand

And all of that applies to Palmetto as well

Normal - het Palmetto - Palmetto
Normal - het Palmetto - SuperPalmetto
Normal - Palmetto - SuperPalmetto

All of these are equally valid to use (regardless of how distasteful individuals might find certain of them), you just have to make sure you as buyer/seller and them as seller/buyer are on the same page
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Technically not correct. You are confusing genetic inheritance with expression

In the context of this discussion, there are only two types of inheritance: recessive and dominant. A dominant gene is an allele that supersedes the effect of the second allele of the same gene in the pair. As such the first allele is “Dominant” and the second is “Recessive”

However, within dominantly inherited genes there are two patterns of expression: simple dominant and incomplete-dominant. When a single dominant allele confers complete expression over the recessive allele, it is considered simple dominant.When a single dominant allele confers only partial (read ‘incomplete’) expression over the recessive allele, it is considered incomplete-dominant and full expression of the allele is only seen when both copies of the dominant allele are present

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Question… Do the trait tags currently being used by MM denote genotype, phenotype, potentially inaccurate hobby-derived terms, or a mix of some or all of those categories? IMO, it would provide clarity if the trait tags were derived from, and understood to be representative of a specific category.

If your statements about the issues with the term “Super” are correct, and if as you say, MM is indeed committed to moving the hobby forward though accuracy of info provided, and education, then perhaps Super should be replaced with another term on MM (e.g., homozygous). MM has become a very influential entity in our hobby and IMO, if things are done correctly here, they will eventually “trickle-down” through the rest of the hobby, hopefully :slight_smile:

“only dominant mutations fully express the same phenotype in both het and homo form.”

This statement is 100% about expression of phenotype. There is no mention of inheritance/genotype here, so I do not understand why you are saying this is incorrect. I completely agree with your statement, but I can see no fundamental difference in accuracy between my statement and yours. Please clarify.

I never said there is and issue with the term “Super”. My discussion was about how you are too narrowly, and inappropriately, trying to define the use of the term
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You are conflating the issue.

Is it “soda” or is it “pop” or is it “cola” or is it “coke”?

Does it matter? Not in the slightest because pretty much everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. And anyone that does not know tends to learn pretty quick (or they opt to be a pedantic twit and insist that only ‘their’ chosen word is the correct one make a full on fool of themselves)

Is it “SuperButter” or is it “BluEL” or is it “HomozygousButter” or is it “Blue-Eye”?

Does it matter? Not in the slightest because pretty much everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. And, again, anyone that does not know tends to learn pretty quick

MM can and will utilize its influence when/where it is necessary, like when it comes to drawing the line about delisting LemonFrost leopard geckos or adding an informational bullet to all morphs that are associated with neuro. But claiming that MM is under some obligation to force the entire reptile hobby to a single use of term that is illegitimate and colloquial is saying that MM should be the pedant. That would be an abuse of MM’s influence
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You used the word “mutation” which denotes the actual altered gene:

The Palmetto gene is a dominant gene. The Palmetto morph is an incomplete-dominant morph

That is the difference

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I just asked a question about this too as a new topic. Yes the calculator is showing super palmetto producing 100% palmettos.

Honestly I don’t agree with this. The gene is still inc-dom, we all still know it’s inc-dom, we’re not changing the classification overall, just how it’s labelled for sale. The people working with this gene the longest still cannot always tell if an animal carries the gene due to the varying expression of the “het” form even in otherwise wild-type specimens.

The difference here is that it doesn’t take a complex combo to mask Palmetto. The variance of expression of the gene itself and the way it develops does the masking. There are het Palmettos that still look like normal, wild-type corns for a year or more, because the colouration tends to develop as they age. I’m unsure as to why changing just the way these animals are listed undermines the purpose of the site. This change we’re asking for is not about ease, it’s about accuracy & giving buyers the most possible knowledge about the genes the animal carries. Just because it requires doing things differently doesn’t mean we’re changing the known facts of the gene itself.

If this is going to be a hard line issue, I do ask that we, at the very least, correct the naming then. There is no “Super Palmetto” and this is causing confusion in listings and sales. The super form is just called Palmetto, the het is Het Palmetto. I don’t think MorphMarket, even for accuracy, should be changing the hobby agreed naming just so it fits better in classification. If BPs can have Het Red Axanthic and Het Daddy, then corns can have Het Palmetto with the super as Palmetto.

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I have zero objection to this and I have said as much in previous conversations. However, I will note that the labeling in the Market for HRA and het Daddy is still the blue/purple of inc-dom in recognition of the genetic nature of the morphs.
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Okay… But there are ball morphs that operate the same. You mentioned HRA/RedAx, I have seen numerous HRA that could be mistaken for normals. I have seen the same with YBs too for that matter. Once upon a time there was a guy on another forum that would constantly make “YB or not” threads and see how many people he could stump. I also had an Ivory where one of the YB copies was so subtle I got in arguments with people on my listings sired by him because they were accusing me of selling single- and double-gene animals that they claimed were obviously not YB.
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The problem for me is that I do not see how changing the labeling solve the issue you have without creating more/larger issues. If it is about accuracy, as you say, then listing it as if it were recessive when it is in fact inc-dom actually goes against accuracy.

It seems to me that the major concern is just the ability to have a “poss het” label so you are “giving buyers the most possible knowledge about the genes the animal carries” and to me that is easily accomplished by simply having that information in the animal label:

Tessera (poss het Palmetto)
Sunkiss (poss het Palmetto)
Normal (poss het Palmetto)

And in the description make a more explicit note:

This animal came from a het Palmetto x het Palmetto paring. I cannot fully tell if this animal is het Palmetto because it can be difficult sometimes, so I am listing it as “poss het” for the gene

That accomplishes everything needed and does not require making an odd outlier exception to the whole MM system to accommodate. This is how most everyone does it with other inc-dom genes that might be masked…

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I want to be clear here that this is just a hard line for me. I, me personally, believe that resetting Palmetto to a recessive-style is more problematic than it is beneficial. But I, me personally, am not the person in charge of making these decision. If John/Thomas/Matt can listen to what I have to say and what everyone else has to say and if they decide I am just a stubborn mule then they can, and will, override my arguments

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I feel this is going to be one of those subjects that new keepers should be steared towards before purchasing… Like the “wobble” or Banana sex ratios.

I think this is going to be the cleanest way, with…

SmartSelect_20230221_203508_Sheets

Its on the way :slightly_smiling_face:

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This is what I meant, if it stays as inc-dom I’d like that the labels are accurately reflecting the given names, so we’re on the same page here.

My problem with this is that, it seems in the search, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t search properly for something like “pos het palmetto” because it’s searching for the gene and a keyword. Because of that, it seems to miss any animal not marked as a visual Het Palmetto, “pos het” is just a keyword modifier but the search is still looking for the specific trait not the word in the overall ad. Even the ad you linked to that says it’s pos YB has the animal mistakenly listed as a visual YB.

If this can be overcome with some programming wizardry so that any ad listing a “pos het Palmetto” showed up instead of those ads with the visual trait + pos in the title, then it would fully negate the need to change anything, really. I feel like the same would work for Halo/Green Blotch as well.

I fully agree that education is going to be the main way this issue is overcome. The main problem being that the hobby itself is fragmented and not everyone cares to know how morphs work.

This alone will be a massive help to the understanding of listings.

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Also thank you for your time, @t_h_wyman & @eaglereptiles, love the ability to discuss things like this in depth & with both of your knowledge bases.

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That is one of my NSF animals so his tagging is just for me. If I were to flip him to being for sale I would toggle off the YB tag
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That… Is outside of my wheelhouse. I do not do the clickity-clacks
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It is a never-ending and thankless battle to try and get everyone on the same page LOL

Ask me how many years I spent fighting the “SuperSpider” argument. Or the “Hidden” Gene Woma argument. Or the “codom” argument. We can regale my need for hobby-induced therapy LOL

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Ah, that one’s on me for not being more attentive to the listing, whoops.

Hopefully those who do the clickity-clacks can weigh in, I am very much not informed on how programming things works.

Even in my short time in the hobby thus far, I frequently find myself rubbing my temples reading certain types of statements. I thought everyone paid close attention to the genetic side of things and oh boy, did it throw me for a loop to find out that’s not the case.

I will say, it does show your passion and dedication, even if therapy is expensive. :rofl: Someone’s gotta care, or everything goes to :poop:.

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Was not trying to point out a shortcoming. I just went straight to that one because it was easy to find rather than plonking my way through the Market for a similar example
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I should have invested in Excedrin stock years ago LOL
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I am heartened to hear some people appreciate it, there are definitely days where I find myself wondering why I bother (not at any point in this conversation, but there have definitely been days LOL)

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Lol the memories :upside_down_face:

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