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I am drowning in lingo

C

cbusdave

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More newbie questions.

I am preparing to purchase a group of leos with the intent of 1) having them as pets, and 2) with the intention of letting them produce babies. There are many different morphs that appeal to me and when trying to decide what to buy, much of it comes down to what the babies might look like. Like many (from what I read), it sounds like a lot of people are setting up “projects” to breed a certain “look”, “morph”, or new variant.

I would like to so the same and here is where I have some questions:

What are the primary differences in the terms below:

Het
Line bred
“Breed true”
Co-Dominate
Etc. (I am sure I am forgetting a few)

I think I understand het (the likelihood that offspring will inherit a specific characteristic) but they all seem to be used interchangeably. Are they the same?

Thanks!

Dave
 
Hey Dave! Here are some definitions for you:

Het (heterozygous): Generally used in reference to a directly inheritable trait. For example, if we breed an albino to a normal, all offspring will be 100% hets for albino (as in they all will have the genotype Rr, with R = normal, dominant coloration and r = albino, recessive coloration).

Line bred: This describes a trait that is not the result of a specific gene, but rather a trait that has been artificially selected for over time. For example, a pure bred dog such as a German Shepherd or a Doberman were created using line breeding. In essence, you breed offspring with desireable traits back to their mother or father, potentially producing more offspring with the desired trait. Super-hypos, tangerines, carrottails, and some snow lines are good examples of line-bred traits. Care must be taken to outcross your lines to other bloodlines to prevent the expression of undesireable recessive traits (like kinked tails or bug-eyes in leopard geckos).

"Breed true": This means that the previously-unknown genetics for a particular new trait have been discovered and are inheritable. Good, recent examples of this are giants and Mack snows. It took the original breeder a few generations to discover that both of these traits were actually codominant (will explain soon what that means), and therefore the traits the offspring will express are predictable if you know what genes the parents had. If the trait didn't "breed true", then A) it's not a directly inheritable trait, B) there's multiple genes influencing the expression of the trait to make prediction nearly impossible, or C) the trait is a relative fluke and will be passed on to offspring at random. If traits don't breed true, then people generally switch to line breeding to get the trait to be expressed.

Recessive: I suppose the best way to illustrate what this means is with an example. Albinos are simple recessives. Normals without an albino gene will be AA (A = dominant normal color gene). Geckos that are hets for albino will be Aa, where a = the recessive albino gene. As long as the animal possesses the dominant A gene, the albino gene will not be expressed. Only animals with aa will be albinos.

Co-dominant: Co-dominant is a bit trickier than recessive, but works on the same principles. The famous Gregor Mendel actually discovered this in his garden of sweet peas, so I'll use his classic study to explain this. With peas, you have white flowers (ww), red flowers (WW), and pink flowers (Ww). Basically, when you have the recessive and dominant copies of the gene, the offspring will be an average of the two, but the trait itself is dominant! Giants and Mack snows are great examples of this. The giant gene is actually dominant, so if you breed a giant to a normal you'll get 50% giants and 50% normals. These giants are like the pink flowers... they're the average of the two genes. However, you can also get "super" giants, and these guys get HUGE because they have both dominant giant genes! It's like a double-whammie of...giantness. :)

I realize this is quite lengthy, but I hope it helps you out!
 
Great job Vanessa! I could not have explained it that well at all, Id of given a lot of links to go read lol
 
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