[snakelover]

Hi i have been reading up on some common genetics (g-d theres so meny genetics) well what does HET mean? is het, heterozygous?
And i read Albino=has no melanu whats that??
Thanks everyone

 

[cornmorphs]

melanin is the black colour.
het means a snake holds a gene for a colour morph that is different is appearance to what the actual snake is..
i.e a normal corn snake is normal to look at, but if its het for say amel.. then bred to an albino or another 100% het albino, then there will be some albinos in the clutch.

 

[intravenous]

het means a snake holds a gene for a colour morph that is different is appearance to what the actual snake is..
i.e a normal corn snake is normal to look at, but if its het for say amel.. then bred to an albino or another 100% het albino, then there will be some albinos in the clutch.

Not necessarily. Every individual has two alleles (versions) for every gene they have. Het is short for heterozygous which means the individual has two different versions of the gene. Heterozygous is the alternative to homozygous, which means both versions of the gene are the same.

On top of that, some versions are dominant over others, i.e. say "X" is dominant over "Y" and the individual has the genes XY. The individual is heterozygous but will only show the appearance of the X gene.

In the example above, X is "normal" and Y is albino, so the individual has the albino gene but doesn't show it in its appearance. In order for the albino characteristic to show up the snake would have to have the genes YY.

I said "not necessarily" because sometimes the characteristic is dominant over the normal type, so the snake would still be heterozygous for the characteristic but WOULD show it in its appearance.

It's not to do with what the snake looks like, its to do with its genes.

 

[Dan]

I know what your saying but in snakes if the morph is dominant or co-dominant then it is given another name.

Ie. tiger retics. You could say that a tiger is het super tiger but because it is visually shown it is given it's own name.

So if something is het then it is normal in appearance, otherwise it would be called something else.

Above may be confusing, i know what i mean but can't seem to get it out!

 

[cornmorphs]

my statement is 100% correct.
you have added to it, but what i wrote is totally correct.. you may wish to continue argueing if you want, it'll be fun i suppose.

 

[cornmorphs]

just to expand on that, obviously i am aware that ultra is co dominent to amel, but as far as i am aware there is no other gene that is either dominent or co-dominent... this obviously stands for corns, i didnt check back on whether it was corns.royals or whatever.. if its royals, then i know nothing so i'll stay out of it... but if its corns then i'm in.

 

[intravenous]

het means a snake holds a gene for a colour morph that is different is appearance to what the actual snake is.....my statement is 100% correct.
you have added to it, but what i wrote is totally correct.. you may wish to continue argueing if you want, it'll be fun i suppose.

If it is true that genetic terms have different meaning when specifically applied to snake genetics (as explained in the post above you) then I guess you could be right.

I don't know anything about snake genetics, but I know quite a lot about the mechanisms of general genetics. When talking about genetics in general the statement: "het means an individual holds a gene for a characteristic that is different to the characteristic that the individual shows" is not correct because not every new characteristic is recessive to normal, some are actually dominant and will show up even if the individual is only het.

But if het is only used in snake genetics for recessive traits then yes, you're right . Sorry if it came across as *searches for the right word and fails* (know-it-all ish ? ), I was just trying to help the person understand.

 

[cornmorphs]

lol, well i was going on about corns really, and didnt mention co dom as the question was from someone that at this stage probably doesnt need to know it.. yeh anyway,sorry too lol.. i get too defensive.. i know

 

[intravenous]

just to expand on that, obviously i am aware that ultra is co dominent to amel, but as far as i am aware there is no other gene that is either dominent or co-dominent

I don't know what ultra is and only have an idea of amel and I can't name any dominant/co-dominant alleles so I'm asking out of curiosity...

what would you call a snake that had one normal allele and one dominant? you said ultra and amel are co-dominant so what do you call snakes which have both?

 

[Morts]

Is there any markings on a het for albino for example that differ from a normal in royals?

 

[cornmorphs]

yes there is in a lot of cases.. although someone else like ukbob is about 10 million times more qualified than me to talk about it,.

 

[Dan]

If it is true that genetic terms have different meaning when specifically applied to snake genetics (as explained in the post above you) then I guess you could be right.

That's my fault, sorry.

Basically there are no terms for genetics that aply to all snake species. What i was trying (and failing) to get at was that if a snake visually shows it is a het then it is named as another morph.
My example was a tiger retic (as that's what i know). The tiger gene in retics is co-dom, ie the tiger is het for supertiger. If you breed a het to a normal then you get so many that are normal and so many that are hets, in this case the hets are visually expressed by way of the tiger pattern.

In the case of a recessive gene like albinism the hets do not show a different pattern from the normal so they are just called hets. IF they were to visually express the genetics then they would be named as something else.

(Still struggling to explain)

 

[intravenous]

I think I understand...I just didn't know that when I made the first post , I don't know very much of genetics regarding snakes