Jaguar Problems

[zobo]

Just had an interesting read on morelipythons.com that apparently the overseas 'Jaguar' morph in carpets has a neurological disorder of sorts, causing muscle problems and weird head movements etc.
http://www.moreliapythons.com/forums...ad.php?t=16274
jas

[boa]

Yes it does seem as though a small % of Jags seem to display various neurological issues varying in seriousness.

[GEARJAMMER]

god i hope thats not eviedent in our Aussie Jag-Jungle look a likes

[rednut]

Problems do eventually come from 'line breeding' if new blood is not introduced.

[cement]

So the banjoes are playing with the a overseas jags.
Everyone who's snake has it, say's they are going to breed. And then they will probably breed again just to see if it comes out two gens down.
Breeding snakes with a possible genetic neurological problem to me makes no sense.
Diamond/ jags, bredli/jags I hope we don't become like the states.

[boa]

It seems clear that the 'defective' gene that produces a Jag also causes these neurological problems in a small number of offspring, it doesn't appear to be related to line breeding as it was found even when outcrossed.
It can't be found in any lookalikes as they don't have the Jag gene.

[Pythoninfinite]

Maybe some things were never meant to be...

Jamie.

[junglepython2]

Originally Posted by rednut

Problems do eventually come from 'line breeding' if new blood is not introduced.

New blood of just about every sought possible has been introduced to the jag line, I don't think it has to do with line breeding but that the original gene may have been less the ideal.

[rednut]

True? It may not be the gene itself though, could easily be a linked gene that gets passed on with the 'jag' gene due to the chromosomal position (and you'd still be right Boa and JP2, outcrossing would have no effect if this were the case either..)

[krusty]

very very interesting.......................cheers zobo

[Khagan]

I suppose thats what you get when you try play God making designer morphs and crap.

[junglepython2]

It's great to see that they continue to breed the affected animals. So much for selective breeding.

[Khagan]

Originally Posted by junglepython2

It's great to see that they continue to breed the affected animals. So much for selective breeding.

Yeah i didnt even read it all stopped after reading them all say they are going to breed these animals like its a game to them "See who can figure it out 1st gets a prize!" either that or they just dont care long as they get the money from selling.

[rednut]

WARNING - very confusing post ahead.

Hang on, RE: linebreeding-
If the 'jag' gene (or a gene linked with it) is responsible for this 'lethal' mutation (lethal, sub-lethal, brain affecting, whatever), it would be worsened by line breeding (?). I'm new to the Jag thing, so correct me If im wrong on this:
-For a snake to be a jag phenotype (ie, visible jag, rather than just a carrier), it would have to be a heterozygote for the gene responsible, yeah?
-the 'jag gene' would be recessive, wouldnt it, otherwise there would be a whole lot more jags around then there actually are (again, just guessing with that, let me know if it dominant, codominant, etc)?
-the idea of line breeding is to get homozygote recessives showing the desired phenotype by inbreeding snakes of known genotype (ie, pair of hetero's or hetero offspring with homo-dominant parent, etc), right?

Lethal mutations are maintained in populations due to the fact that they have no effect on the fitness of the animal when the animal is a hetero, as lethal mutations are generally recessive and only show up when the animal is a homo-recessive.......so wouldnt line breeding to gain animals homozygous recessive for the jag gene, which also appears to be faulty (ie, have a lethal mutation in it or linked to it), effectively be creating animals homozygous for a lethal mutation...???

Fair enough they outcrossed, but could they have outcrossed to heterozygous individuals and resulted in offspring that were homozygous recessive? (amongst others, of course, they mentioned 1 in about 9 outcrossed offspring had the neurological problems? anyone know hardy-wienburg (sp) ratio's?)

Which means...while Line breeding is NOT the cause of the mutation (in the form of inbreeding depression), there is a very good chance line breeding actually brought it out, so to speak?

A good example (in every txtbook written) is sickle cell anemia:
Homo-dom: people are normal, not carriers.
Heterozygous: people are carriers, butdon't die, and actually have increased resistance to malaria. This has lead to it being maintained through natural selection in african populations.
Homo-recess: people get sick and die - hence its a lethal mutation

If we 'line bred' a bunch of hetero people cause they had big mucsles or something, we would create homo-recessive offspring....which would die....yeah?

Totally rambling now, anyone who waded through that needs a medal.....but does anybody understand what Im on about? Im not having a dig at anyone here, I really want to know if this is on the right track or not?

[junglepython2]

I'm not 100% with Jag genetics, but I'm pretty sure its a codominant trait. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

So not really recessive and thus no carries. Jag animals are heterrozygous for the Jag gene. If they homozygous for the Jag gene they are lecusitc which so far means death as none have survived (other then one sick one posted recently).

In text books the AB blood group is a typical example of codominant traits. However homozygous doesn't mean death in that case obviously.