Basic Genetics
Okay, before we go too far, we need to know some nomenclature and some basic biology.
Co-Dominant: A trait that will be visually expressed with only one copy of the gene,
with the caveat that two copies of the gene produces a snake that looks different
than one with only one copy of the gene (what we call a "super" form, or homozygous). Pastels
are a great example. If only one Pastel gene is present in a snake, it will look like
a Pastel. If two copies of the Pastel gene are present, it is a Super Pastel, which
looks different than a regular Pastel.
Dominant: Basically, this is the exact same as Co-Dominant except the "super" form (two
copies of the gene) looks exactly the same as a snake with only one copy of the gene.
Spiders and Pinstripes are good examples of Dominant mutations (though the jury is still
out whether they are truly dominant--no need to go into that here). A snake with one
Spider gene looks like a Spider; a snake with two Spider genes still looks like a regular
ol' Spider.
Recessive: This is where two genes are necessary for the trait to show up visually.
You can think of this as a co-dominant trait where the "super" form is apparent but
snakes with only one copy of the gene appear normal. (Snakes with only one copy of
a recessive gene are called heterozygous, or het for short.) Albinos are a good example of
a recessive trait. If you breed an Albino to a normal, all of the offspring will look
normal because the offspring only inherited one Albino gene. If you're confused, don't
worry; this will become easier to understand when we start doing Punnett squares.
Each parent will pass on half of their genes to each offspring, though which genes get
passed on is random. (This is why your brother or sister doesn't look exactly like you;
they got a different mix of genes than you despite that you each got half your genes
from Mom and half from Dad.)
So when we do our Punnett squares later, we need to include
two genes for each genetic trait. For example, a normal snake could be labeled as NN:
two normal genes, one from each parent. However, a normal can be labeled all manner
of ways; I'll talk about that in a sec.
Notice that I labeled the normal NN: two capital Ns. In genetics, a capital letter
indicates either a dominant or co-dominant trait. When dominant/co-dominant traits
show up, a capital letter combined with a lower-case letter means the dominant/co-dominant
trait will override the other lower-case genes. (See why they're called "dominant" now?)
Let's use our Spider example from above: A regular Spider can be labeled Ss: one Spider
gene, one normal gene (the snake looks like a Spider). If you're wondering why we need
two letters, remember that the offspring will get one gene of a certain trait from each
parent. Think of it as being in a library, and you have two friends who are each going
to give you a book that starts with the letter S. One friend gives you a 1000-page hardback
and the other gives you a children's book. You got two books, but you notice the 1000-page
book a whole lot more than the kids' book. Each snake parent passed on an "S" book to
their offspring, but one of the "books" was the Spider gene and the other book was just
some random one in the place where a Spider gene could be. (Did I just completely confuse
you? I hope not....)
For recessives, the opposite happens. If a snake only has one Albino gene, we'll label it
as Aa, but since the trait is recessive, the lower-case "a" is the Albino gene. A full
Albino, then, would be aa, not AA.
What about co-doms? Same thing as doms: Pp is a Pastel, PP is a Super Pastel, pp is a normal.
Other examples:
gg is a Genetic Stripe (recessive), so Gg would be het Genetic Stripe and GG
would be a normal.
A Pinstripe (dominant) would be Nn, so nn is a normal and NN is a homozygous Pinstripe (which,
since it's a dominant trait, will look the same as a heterozygous Pinstripe).
One more thing: You'll note that I capitalize the names of morphs. Despite my self-imposed
Grammar Nazi status, I do not capitalize them because it's grammatically correct (it's actually
not). I do this because there are some morphs with generic names, and I feel it is less
confusing if morphs are capitalized. For example, someone once asked about Patternless ball pythons.
Several of the people who responded didn't realize that Patternless is a specific morph of ball
python and thought the person was referring to any morph that lacks pattern
(Leucistics, Super Black Pastels, etc.).
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