diablohogs said:
thats more believable than a 16X het.
Yanno, the phrase he used was "Can produce 16 different morphs" (not 'het for 16 recessive/codominant/incomplete dominant traits')
Now, I don't have anything like the number of geckos he's got, and nowhere NEAR the number of different genetic traits that result in what I know as "morphs" (distinct colour phases, regardless of the particular heritability of genetic origins, be it dominant, incomplete dominant, recessive or polygenic).
I have precisely ten geckos:
2 patternless males, unknown het or visual for anything else, though one male has produced hypo hatchlings two years running, and I believe one of those to be out of a non-hypo albino female.
1 blizzard male het for albino (suspected actually banana blizzard aka homozygous patternless/blizzard).
1 tangerine Tremper albino female, unknown het for anything else.
1 high-yellow Tremper albino female, het for blizzard, poss. het patternless.
1 blizzard female with one 'snake' eye (is the blizzard eye thing actually related to the Eclipse/snake-eye gene?), unknown hets, might be banana.
1 high-yellow probably Hine-line hypo female, unknown hets.
1 high-yellow probably Hine-line hypo female, known het patternless, poss. het albino.
1 tangerine probably Hine-line hypo female, known het patternless
Now, with the geckos I have (and the ability to breed for a couple of generations first to create homozygous multiple-recessive animals) I could theoretically produce the following morphs of offspring out of a single pair of animals of which one was visually tangerine hypo or superhypo, and the other was visually high-yellow hypo or superhypo, both 100% het for patternless, albino and blizzard*:
1. Normal
2. Patternless
3. Blizzard
4. Tremper Albino
5. Banana Blizzard
6. Blazing Blizzard
7. Patternless Albino
8. Hypo Albino ("Hybino")
9. Tangerine Albino
10. Tangerine Hybino
11. Blazing Banana Blizzard
12. Tangerine Hypo
13. Tangerine Super Hypo
14. High Yellow Hypo
15. High Yellow Super Hypo
I'm not counting snake-eyed into the morphs, because I don't know what the exact heritability is or whether 'snake eyed blizzard' is a definite distinguishable morph from 'not snake eyed blizzard'... and as it is, I count fifteen visually distinguishable colour 'morphs'. Isn't it possible that Ron Tremper, who has loads more geckos than me and loads more genetics to work with - like Giant, for example - could produce a largely normal-looking gecko that could carry the potential to make just ONE more morph than I can?
* I'd produce that pair with those traits by breeding a blazing banana blizzard male to a high yellow hypo female and a tangerine hypo female. You'd get babies with variable hypo colouration (and if that one patty male above carries hypo hidden under his spotlessness, I could get a double dose, one from the BBB and one from the mother) and variable tangerine or high yellow colouration - and guaranteed het for the recessives. I could ALMOST do that in one jump, without needing more than a single generation, with one male offspring from my probably-banana blizz het albino male and my albino het blizz and maybe patternless female.