Genetics and the "white/albino" inferalanis

[steelcube]

The way I looked at your frog's genetic is actually going backward. I know you haven't been producing albinos, but your F1/F2 produced albinos...

So if it in fact follows Medelian (not some jumping genes etc) and if you run thru several different pundit squares scenarios (the link explained what it is)... the only explanation you'll find is that only one of the parent carries an albino gene...

Here's the explanation:

let A = normal pigment, a = albino,

AA x Aa (your frogs)
|
AA, Aa - first offsprings (F1) genetic combination possibilities (50:50). Out of this if you (lucky) breed both Aa, then:

Aa x Aa
|
AA, Aa, aa - second offsprings F2 (25:50:25) will produce albinos (aa).

It's a bit limited trying to explain all of this on a msg board, so if all of this does not make sense, come to NWFF, I'll let you buy me a beer and I'll go over this.

[melissa68]

I have spoken with a few 'snake' guys about what the Alanis are. Based on his own research, and the colors of the offspring, his conclusion were T positive Albinos.

The Albinos we have are growing at the same rate as the normal offspring.

Melis

[mydumname]

I understand the squares. It shows how dominant and recessive traits work. The carriers of the recessive traits are not identifiable by outward appearance.

[snmreptiles]

I'll take a stab at this...Although it would be much easier to do with a punnet square I have no idea how to incorporate this in the board.

The guess is that one of the original frogs is carrying the gene for albinism making it heterozygous (het) for albino, but looking normal! When Robb bred the two frogs together, you get ALL normals 50% of them carry the gene for albinism. SO theoretically half are carrying the albino gene, half aren't. When you breed two hets together you get roughly 1 in 4 that are homozygous (show the trait), 2 that are hets, and 1 that is normal. That's how you see 66% probable hets in snakes, gex, etc. because 1 is homozygous, the other 3 all look the same, but you don't know which 2 carry the gene. So Robb produced 50% hets in the F1's, sold them to other people who happened to pair hets together, now every "normal" froglet produced by the pair that produced the albino's are 66% hets. Sorry if this didn't help anybody.

Melissa, I don't know on the T + form?! T - albino retics/ball pythons have some bright colors, most T + that I have seen are kind of washed out or faded looking?!

Ben C, do you have any pics of the albino patricias? If so I would love to see them!

[rmelancon]

A friend of mine suggested that possibly there are other recessive traits that "tag along" with the albino trait. One of those traits could cause carriers to be a lighter tadpole. Just a theory and I'm dumbing down what he said because I'm a bit ignorant on a lot of the genetics terminology. If he wants to go into more detail I'm sure he'll make a post.

[rompida]

Originally Posted by KeroKero

As far as I understand... the same system and genetics controls if melanism is expressed in the tadpoles and adults (the cells don't switch from albino to non-albino or the other way around just because of metamorphosis), while the cells do get swapped around a bit during metamorphosis, the colors themselves are produced (or not produced) the same in both stages. The only thing I can think of where a lack of a color in one stage is not noticable in the other, would be with colors only present in one stage.

Let me play devil's advocate on this one...

it is possible that there are genes that turn on and off during stages of development. This "white tad" may be that case. Perhaps there is a gene that influences pigment production during the tad stage. Similar to a baby human born with blond hair that turns brown later in life. To get really complicated, the gene may only need to be present on one allele to be expressed, which could lend credibility to Robb's theory that the het frogs could start out as lighter colored tads. This trait (lighter pigment tads) may or may not be a piggyback gene to the amelanistic gene that produces Melissa's white frogs..... um... ouch... that hurts the brain.