So…I’ve actually been thinking about this for a very long time. How come all those big time breeders don’t just genetically modify their animals to have specific morphs? Why don’t people make the spider morph healthier with gene editing? How come you don’t just edit an animals genome and make it look a lot cooler? I hope some people here can answer my question. Thanks!
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Because of the unknown/unknowable.
Cost would be the first consideration. Already we have people asking exorbitant prices for ball pythons. Morphs of which, btw, are no more difficult to propagate than normals.
What happens if you edit a pied ball to produce a red or blue or green color instead of white and end up with an animal that is toxic? Or worse.
Always think worst case scenario. Remember Murphy’s law.
Or, some irresponsible person, I know there isn’t any people like this, breeds it into the population and causes a world war Z situation. Not likely but, again,that Murphy can be a real trickster.
I think @t_h_wyman would be better suited to speculate or inform us on this.
Btw, it has been done. Scaleless ratsnakes were created in Zurich Switzerland, if I remember correctly, to study the effects of scales on locomotion.
Great can of worms to smash open.
Can’t wait for others opinions and speculations.
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Too expensive.
Too expensive.
Too expensive.
Would you rather the powers that be focus all their resources developing gene modification to make a blue snake or cure cancer? I think humanity would be far better off without cancer than with a blue snake.
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Here are a few reasons I can think of off the top of my head as to why this isn’t a thing…
(I’ll premise this as someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about gene editing, these are only my opinions and concerns based on little knowledge I have on the matter)
•Ethical concerns…
While the idea might sound cool and fun, is it really? It might lead to further health issues than what may be already present. We are talking about modifiying the makeup of what literally makes the animal, there could be so many adverse issues that arise from it like immune system compromising, birth defects/deformity, neurological issues, etc… There is still so much unknown variables in genetic makeup that altering it might be a gamble of health every time it is done.
•Cost.
It costs hundreds of thousands to do anything in gene editing. Only a teeny percent of the breeding hobby would realistically be willing to give that much money into one thing over putting it back into their business.
•Market…
Gene modifying would most likely completely throw out the market of other natural Morphs.
•Cool idea, but not really a fun one.
Imo gene modification would take out all of the fun and anticipation of breeding overall, especially breeding for morphs or other traits. Some people put a lot of their lives and hobby into the breeding process because its enjoyable and the time it takes them to develop morph/line projects would be thrown out of the window.
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First of all cost, the cost to produce a transgenic mouse with one or two mutations is usually in the $1000-$3000 range from a subsidized core, and I was quoted ~10K from a company to make a CRISPR cell line that I was too lazy to make myself, so I expect a snake would be at least that much if not more. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost would be closer to 15k to get somone to do this, so it’s infinitely cheaper to just breed what you want.
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We don’t know the causative variant for each ball python morph yet, and you can’t edit in a variant if you don’t even know what gene you’re targeting, let alone the specific variant.
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99.99% of ball python breeders are not geneticists and don’t have the knowledge base, skill set or tools to do this, so they would need to contract out to someone who could.
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Genetic editing isn’t always as clean or easy as one might think. Even if you do know the exact gene and variant you’re intending to edit, there’s a lot of potential for off target effects or for things to just not work.
Because the variant that cause the spider “look” also causes the defect. If you get rid of the variant, you get rid of both the color pattern and the defect. So essentially you’d just be editing spider ball pythons to be wild type/normal.
Edited to remove typos 
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I personally work with rats, but the lab above me uses trangenic alcohol mice and the lab beside me uses transgenic TOMATO mice and a pair of breeders for certain projects can be 10k 
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Genetics isn’t as clear cut as we’d like.
Even with just simply cloning an animal you can have issues.
There were actually a couple of companies for a bit offering clones for pets and the like after the rise of Dolly the sheep.
You would end up with even more expensive animals that wouldn’t even look the same because of how a calico’s pattern develops on a cat or just how the animal develops after birth.
Those companies didn’t last long.
And with Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi (yes there are three ‘dire wolves’ ) we’re going to see a lot of talk about CRISPR. And part of WHY they exist is because that company is backed by George R. R. Martin. That’s a lot of weight to throw around there. And is also going to be a big sore thumb for a while because no, these are not technically dire wolves as they were … But we already have talks of just gene editing extinct animals back and why have animal protections anymore?
If it was as easy as it’s made out to be, we’d have a lot more variety in GLO fish for one… that’s the most publicly available trademarked animal. As an FYI… It was actually illegal for people to breed and sell GLOfish because of that. You can get fined heavily if caught as a non recognized distribution source. I don’t know if this lapsed over time or only applies to the newer species or if people just don’t care anymore…but it was an interesting fact.
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Everyone else jumped in and covered most of what I would have said. Only thing I will add beyond everything here is to just re-emphasize that genetic engineering is not the simple “plug-and-play” thing that your typical news stories make it out to be. Yes, CRISPR makes it easier, but in the same way that flying a Cessna is “easier” than flying a C-130 Hercules - you are not just going to decide on a whim to be a pilot and climb straight into the cockpit and launch into the sky
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Riffing off of this, I want to add that even when you think you know a mutation-to-morph variant from discovery in another model system, that does not mean it will work in the animal you want. As an example, they took the mutation that causes piebald in balls and put it in the same gene in anoles and mice and neither of those ended up being piebald
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I will go further, they are 100% NOT dire wolves, no technicalities about it. They were nothing but a publicity stunt and I am disgusted that George Church (also involved in the program) is justifying their authenticity! The closest extant relation to dire wolves are African jackals. Claiming timber wolves with some dire genes in them “authentic” is as idiotic as claiming the GLOfish you mention are “authentic” jellyfish because they have the GFP gene in them
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Thank you Travis.
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I could rant for an hour about this, I absolutely hate how grey wolves with gene expressions changed to mimic direwolve features (sorta? they wouldn’t have been white most likely, I think they just went with GoT features) was publicized as the ressurection of the real dirwolf species 
EDIT: I see @t_h_wyman beat me to it and shares my disgust about how this is being handled by those involved and the media!
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Yeah. The whole situation is a mess and it’s so frustrating that of course everyone is eating it up because the Adorable puppies they ended up making. Also why whenever I bring them up I always use quotes cause it feels icky trying to say they are true dire wolves.
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Also
As @chesterhf mentioned the gene responsible for the appearance of Spider is also responsible for the development issues of the inner ear that causes the wobble.
You get rid of that you get rid of the Spider look.
Honestly if you want the appearance of Spider without the issues you can get a Calico Pinstripe, they look very similar without any issues with their genes as far as I’m aware 
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While gene editing is theoretically possible, applying it to create or modify morphs in reptiles like ball pythons is extremely complex and not yet feasible in practice. One reason being the accessibility of the equipment and availability of technicians in this niche to do it correctly.
First, we would need to fully understand the genetic basis of each morph, including all the genes and regulatory elements involved. Even if we knew the exact mutation, delivering gene-editing tools like CRISPR into reptile embryos is technically challenging. Unlike mammals or common lab animals (like mice or zebrafish), reptile reproduction makes it hard to access the embryo at the right developmental stage for editing.
There are also ethical, legal, and financial barriers. Gene-editing is expensive, and genetically modified animals may face strict regulations.
Finally, editing an animal to look “cooler” is subjective and could raise ethical or animal welfare concerns. For example, the Spider morph is popular for its look, but the neurological issues it carries make it controversial. Editing the gene to remove the wobble (if we could) might seem like a fix, but if the same gene causes both the pattern and the wobble, you might end up removing the look too. Even more importantly, we don’t know if editing a particular gene will cause downstream effects that could introduce other unintended, more detrimental effects.
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