How common it is for powerball (super spotnose ) to wobble ?
1 Like
Spotnose falls into the complex of animals that people tend to classify as âneuro morphsâ. From my understand spotnose in its single gene form rarely expresses a wobble, but in its super form or combined with other neuro morphs, youâre very likely to see a wobble present.
2 Likes
Iâve seen a couple different people mention that every super they have seen has a wobble. There was a thread a bit ago regarding the wobble on super chocolate and super spotnose where it was brought up as well.
I personally have seen a single gene spotnose with a wobble as well. It was at a show and probably fairly stressed. But as far as I knowâŠitâs not as common as in HGW, spider or champagne. Some genes in the complex just seem more prone to it than others.
2 Likes
i was eyeing a spotnose clown combo but Iâm trying to avoid anything that could cause problem which donât leave much space for making my own hets since i have to put those hets back together making the whole spotnose combo risky âŠevery gene i want seem to be either allelic to het red or problematic in general .i want to make super ,i want to make pied but i have het red axanthic so i cant âŠIâm at that point that all my project are going into the garbage can because i have het red axanthic or want dark morph in general but canât they all have problemsâŠ
Powerball, to my knowledge, always wobbles. I have personally observed multiple single gene spotnose animals with slight wobble as well, but itâs definitely not as common as with spider or champagne.
4 Likes
I wonder what the difference in their skeletal structure is. Because these neuro genes are essentially permanently dizzy as a result of their âmisshapenâ skulls. Maybe spotnose and chocolate just have very minor skull deformities that gets more intense in their super form. It seems to me that a super spotnose is similar to regular spider so they may both have similar intensities with their skull shapes. And my guess is that in their super form for all of them they just get larger deformities. So I would presume that to be the reason a super spider never hatches. Itâs skull is so badly deformed being as it is super that its brain gets compressed. If Iâm not mistaken they die near the end stages of their egg growth, so I would assume that their skull is caved in and because of this, their brain eventually grows too large for the area it was given in their skull being as brain development tends to happen in later stages. Hence why our brains arenât fully developed until weâre 25. Thoughts on this?
This is not reliably proven yet. There was one very small study that concluded that a malformation of the inner ear is a possible cause of the spider wobble, but this will need a lot more research before it can be reliably taken as fact. There are multiple viable theories as to what causes the issues and why some combos are lethal.
3 Likes
Yes. Genes are so interesting lol. I believe even pinstripe has an issue with itâs super form? I could be mistaken but I do believe Brian Barczyk (rip of course) had a whole video on a pinstripe mutation that he hatched. It ended up not making it and he said not one thatâs ever hatched like that has ever made it past a day or two making it lethal.
Spider or champagne most likely. Theyâre lethal as supers or when paired
2 Likes
As @armiyana mentioned, likely one of those. Pinstripe doesnât have any known issues like that. Pinstripe is one that has a super form that isnât distinguishable from its normal form (het pinstripe vs homo pinstripe).
3 Likes
I went back and actually found the videos on it. It turns out he had bought and was breeding a pinstripe female when the gene was brand new. She had apparently created a genetic mutation in her babies two separate times creating very pretty orange snakes that never actually hatched. Finally after 15 years of having that female he got the mutation a third time creating a pattern-less bright orange snake. He was also getting these babies the first two times with the pinstripe female and normal male so itâs all in the pinstripe or whatever else that female had going on. He supposedly proved it to be a brand new gene by mutation (similar to how monsoon was created). The third time he hatched it the baby actually survived a few days and then passed for no reason. He stopped breeding the female after that as he had pretty much proved the new gene to be lethal and never even named. So yeah pretty interesting, I guess my memory was a bit off though and the mutation had more to do with the female herself rather than the pinstripe gene. However still, the only known gene in the mix was pinstripe and the female was bred for fifteen years only producing that mutation three separate times making me feel like it wasnât another gene within the snake.
2 Likes
Here is the link to the study if anyone cares to read it. Pretty intresting. Granted, yes they only looked at 4 spiders and 5 normals for comparison.
To my knowledge there have been zero studies/medical findings proving the âwobbleâ is caused by a neurological issues/dysfunction.
3 Likes
While you are correct about research, I believe, the symptoms of the wobble syndrome that we can observe are consistent with proven neurological diagnoses in both snakes and other animal species, so it is a very reasonable assumption to make. There are also theories about the neural crest development and pigment, which make a lot of sense. Itâs also important to remember that even if it is an inner ear deformity, that doesnât rule out there also being a neurological component.
And, at the end of the day, I would advocate even more strongly against breeding wobble morphs (which is not the point of this post but I will mention it anyway) if it proves to be an inner ear issue. As someone who lived with vertigo for years, it is incredibly debilitating. Whether snakes are able to feel discomfort the same way humans can is a non-issue, it is still something I would never willingly subject an animal to.
Ultimately, my point is just to correct misinformation. Many people are now using that study to cite âwell now itâs proven not to be neurological!â and that is simply not how science works.
1 Like
Exactly at what point in my post did i say it was not a âproven neurologicalâ issue? This study shows there is corraltion between the spider morph and an inner ear malformation. To date ZERO STUDIES have been done to show any corralation between any âso calledâ wobble morph and neurological issues. Just because you can point to a corralation between mamals and birds does not make it fact for reptiles. Is it a plausible conclustion, sure. But to completely discount a study with direct corralation between the two is absurd.
At no point in the post did i advacate for or against breeding so called âwobble morphsâ. You have made it a very clear you are against breeding so called âwobble morphsâ and that is your prerogative to not do so.
my post was to simply share the study that i found interesting. nothing more.
You never said so at all - I clarified because many people have used this one study to cite that itâs now a proven inner ear issue, and this one study is not large enough, not controlled enough, and does not have enough statistical significance to be used as a reliable source at this point in time. Thatâs the only information I wanted to correct, and it was directed at others reading this thread, not at you. I am not discounting the study. It is interesting. Iâm just clarifying out that it was not conducted in a way that makes it a reliable source to make claims that wobble issues are definitively caused by inner ear deformities and not by neurological issues, which many people are now using that study to do. The study should absolutely be shared - it just needs to be shared with that caveat because many people donât understand how much evidence is required to make conclusions within the scientific community.
1 Like