question on genetics

i have an albino male. if i bred a pure albino to a pure anery i should produce albinos het anery, anerys het albino, and snows right? also, if i breed an albino male to hypo female i should get albinos, dh sunglows, and sunglows correct. i am new to the morph game, ive done most of my work with emeralds and gtps. i am going to make some big purchases and just want to make sure of what im going to produce. thanks for any help, greg
greg von bruchhaeuser

Sorry to rain on your parade, but neither mating will come out the way you predict.

Short answer: Pure albino x pure anerythristic produces normal looking babies that are double heterozygous. The babies are heterozygous for albino and heterozygous for anerythristic. Mating a pair of those babies produces (statistically) 9/16 normals, 3/16 albinos, 3/16 anerythristic, 1/16 snow (both albino and anerythristic).

Mating a pure albino to a hypo produces (statistically) 1/2 hypo babies that are heterozygous albino and 1/2 normal looking babies that are heterozygous albinos. To get any sunglows, you would have to mate a hypo that is heterozygous albino (often called double het for sunglow) to either an albino or a heterozygous albino.

The long answer is far too long for a forum. Check Serpwidgets' corn snake genetics tutorial for more information. The URL is http://www.serpwidgets.com/Genetics/genetics.html. While this is a corn snake site, albino in boas works like amelanistic in corns, and anerythristic in boas works like anerythristic in corns. While there is no corn snake analog to boa constrictor hypo, you will get the correct results for a dominant mutant gene like hypo if you take the discussion of amelanistic and replace "normal" with "hypo" and "amelanistic" with "normal".

Unfortunately, the genetics pages on the boa web pages that I have seen are pretty bad. I'd try to learn genetics from them only if I was deeply and passionately into pain. Either use Serpwidgets' site or buy yourself a genetics text. Elron and Stansfield's "Schaum's Introduction to Genetics" is as good as most texts I've seen and costs less than $10 for a used paperback edition.

Good luck.

that doesnt make sense to me. why would hets produce snows, but not the full strain.

sorry forgot to post my name.
greg von bruchhaeuser

Originally Posted by greg4000

that doesnt make sense to me. why would hets produce snows, but not the full strain.

You want snows, but you are starting with an albino and an anerythristic. Which means you are not starting with the full strain. If you mated snow to snow, then you would be starting with the full strain and would get snow babies.

The problem is that genes are in pairs, and one of each pair comes from the father and the other from the mother. Lets say that A = the normal gene and a = the albino gene. The father has two A genes, and the mother has two a genes. The father gives an A to each baby, and the mother gives an a. This results in all the babies having an A gene paired with an a gene. And any effect of the a gene is masked by the A gene, making the a for albino mutant gene recessive to the normal or A gene. In other words, an Aa snake looks normal, and the only way to be an albino is to have a pair of a genes, aa. That is why you do not get any albinos from a mating between a normal and an albino boa. Clear as mud?

I want to emphasize that the A gene is not the anerythristic mutant gene. The A gene is the normal version of the albino gene. The A gene is required in order for the boa to produce normal black pigment.

Anerythristic is just like albino, except that it is caused by a different pair of genes at a different location on the genome. Call the normal gene An and the anerythristic mutant gene an. The An gene is required in order for the boa to produce normal yellow/red pigment.

Your albino has a pair of albino genes and a pair of normal versions of the anerythristic gene, or aa AnAn. Your anerythristic has a pair of normal versions of the albino mutant gene and a pair of anerythristic mutant genes, or AA anan.The albino gives each baby one a and one An gene. The anerythristic gives each baby one A and one an gene. The normal A gene masks the effect of the a gene, and the normal An gene masks the effect of the an gene. And the result is a normal-looking snake that carries a masked a gene and a masked an gene.

This next step might be easier if you take 8 scraps of paper. Take four and mark one as A, one as a, one as An, and one as an, and then put them in a container maked "male". Repeat the markings on the other four scraps of paper, and put them in a container marked "female".

From the male's container, take either the A or the a gene. You can't take both the A and a genes because that will kill the baby. Then take either the An or the an gene. Put them in a container marked "baby". Repeat from the female's container. The result is the baby's complement of genes.

If you take the father's A gene, it can go to the baby with either the An or the an gene. If you take the father's a gene, it can go to the baby with either the An or the an gene. Same with the mother. The only way to get a snow, aa anan, is to get the a gene from both father and mother and to get the an gene from both father and mother. And aa anan is only 1/16 of the possible combinations of genes.

That is why two double heterozygous parents can sometimes produce a snow and an albino x anerythristic mating will never produce a snow.

This is the short version. Serpwidget's tutorial or a genetics text would take it slower. Hope this helps.

so what you are saying is that you need two double hets to make snows. thats odd, thanks for the info though.
greg von bruchhaeuser

You do not need two double hets to make snows now. You just need to be able to get the necessary genes from both parents. For example, abino, heterozygous anerythristic x abino, heterozygous anerythristic will (statistically) produce 3/4 albino and 1/4 snow babies. And snow x snow produces all snows. But the projected albino x anerythristic mating repeats the first step in the original snow project. And the double het x double het mating was the necessary second step in the process of producing snows and all the other snakes that can now be mated to produce snows. That's the way sexual reproduction works when two independent recessive mutant genes are involved. You will see when you do the albino x anerythristic cross for real.