I should also probably try to figure out if my next twins are connected in some way. Not sure what I should look for though and I don’t normally cut eggs open enough to really see anything for fear they will come out early without absorbing yolk.
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There’s definitely a lot we don’t yet know. I’m the first to admit that what science accepts today may change tomorrow. This is especially true in fast-growing fields such as genetics.
The Washington State article cited is a small study, which is of course fine. The author looked at seven families, who had 19 pairs of twins among them. I found this especially interesting:
"Some geneticists say that there could be more than one single gene that controls cell-to-cell connections. And they think these genes may be involved at different times in early embryonic development. The evidence for this is that they have only found two types of families with familial MZ twinning. In some families, all the twin pairs had two chorions, because the embryo split very early. In other families, all the twin pairs had one chorion, because the split occurred later. There were no families in which some twin pairs had two chorions and other twin pairs had one chorion. "
The fact that there was consistency within the families is fascinating. It is indeed suggestive of a genetic component. The sample size is, however, too small to draw conclusions.
There’s some other interesting research on the idea here:
Of course, all of the above is related to humans. Extrapolation to snakes is fun, and makes intuitive sense. Scientifically? We know that there sooo much we don’t know. Lol
My personal favorite tidbit about multiples is that the nine banded armadillo almost always produces identical quadruplets. (And I thank God I’m not a nne-banded armadillo! 
)
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I don’t cut either, but I was able to see by candling that there were two developing fetuses and two placental regions in Victory’s egg. No idea about membranes.
I had a second set of twins from completely different lines hatch in 2022, but they sadly didn’t survive. I didn’t know that pair was coming, but I’m going to scrutinize that female’s eggs carefully when she’s bred again.
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I was wondering what I could look for in the ball python twin eggs to decide if they are one or the other type. Probably not the best lab animal due to taking about three years to grow. I suppose not enough unrelated twin sheds available to find the gene unless it’s already been identified in the human studies.
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Thanks for that, @eaglereptiles ! I’ll definitely check that out. It’s well established that fraternal twinning in mammals (including us) has a genetic component. It makes sense that there one in other species but I didn’t realize anyone was actually researching it.
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This continues to be incredibly fascinating and enlightening.
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There is a lot for me to go through and unpack here and I am short on time today so it may have to wait until I have a minute or three to come up for air. I promise I will circle back
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Ready to circle back yet?
And yes I know you said you won’t be back for another week or two just am reading through old threads lol
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No twins from the one GHI twin that went or her pastel GHI non twin sister. I did get 1.2 holdbacks from those sisters. Will try not to breed them together though. Trying to grow the GHI mahogany het pied male quickly to breed to a couple of unrelated mahogany females so might test if males can pass the twin gene if he even got it from mom.
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