Free DNA Sexing of Reptiles! Exciting News!

[Sdaji]

Hi all,

I have some exciting news!

As many of you will know, there has been a lot of discussion about the DNA sexing of reptiles. It is a commercially available service for animals such as birds, but unfortunately until now reptile people haven't had this service available to us. Hopefully down the track that may soon change...

In the mean time, the opportunity exists for a small number of people to have their reptiles sexed for free! We are looking for monitors, elapids, colubrids and some pythons. All you need is to be able to deliver fresh sloughs to the lab in Burwood. Sloughs can be stored in the freezer if you can't get to the lab the day they come off the snake/goanna.

In particular we are after:

Death Adders of known localities, especially if you can supply at least one of each sex for a locality (and we'll sex any others you have). If you have a few from the same locality but aren't sure of the sexes, it's likely there will be at least one of each sex, so send them our way! We're particularly interested in getting hold of east coast Commons, a male Djarra (we already have Djarra girls), and some pyrrhus.

Any other elapids if you know you have at least one of each sex, or you have a large group, and they're all from the same locality.

Colubrids of any species or locality, as long as you can supply at least one of each sex.

Pythons We pretty much have these covered, but if you have albinoes and 100% hets we'd love some sloughs. Albinoes of any species would be appreciated, and while it's not guaranteed, if you provide samples of albinoes and definite hets you'll likely be able to get results for possible hets if you provide those samples too. We'll also do locality Black-headed Pythons, Olive Pythons, Rough-scaled Pythons (I imagine delivering fresh sloughs of these to Burwood, Melbourne would be tricky, but hey, maybe someone can do it, and I'm sure someone would love a whole clutch of roughies sexed for free!), Chondros (I'm sure someone would LOVE this service!).

Goannas of any species, as long as you have a few (or if you have at least one of each sex).

For all of these species it's a great opportunity to get a whole clutch sexed for free, and if you've produced a clutch you'll probably have a definite male and female for us.

So, if you'd like to make use of this service, we'd love to provide it! Just pop your fresh sloughs in the freezer and get in touch. Of course, we'll treat your specimens and identity with complete discretion, and you can do it annonymously if you wish.

Contact me on [email protected] or you can try my phone if you don't mind the high chance of me being too busy to answer: 0403 267 495.

 

[Sdaji]

Answers to a couple of questions I've had since submitting the above post:

Yes, the goal is to produce a test for albino hets, and we'll try to do so if you give us albinoes and known hets - if so, we'll also work on any possible hets you supply. This is not an easy thing to do and a lot of groundwork needs to be done. Obviously it would be a very useful tool to have, so the work is being done to produce it.

For the samples, we need them to be reasonably fresh, but not large. Small sections of skin are fine, so if your snake soils the skin you just need a fairly small clean piece. We can do entire clutches of babies. We only need a small piece of goanna skin.

I'm amazed we don't yet have anyone wanting their baby Chondros sexed! This service is worth a fortune! I'm not trying to track anyone down or find Chondro keepers, you're more than welcome to get a friend to drop the skins in and we can notify you of the results through an annonymous email, post them on APS using "Children's Python" instead of Chondro, or whatever you like - we don't even need a name, let alone an address.

On all animals, locality is desirable, but if we can't get hold of locality specimens we'll take locality unknowns.

 

[ryanharvey1993]

thats great news, much easier then having to "pop" the hatcho pythons, will other lizards be able to be sexed by DNA? would make it easier as baby lizards will be known sex.... sell all the males, keep 2 males and keep all the females :lol:

 

[scorps]

That will be good for green tree pythons, not having to wait till their older.

 

[Sdaji]

Other lizards can be sexed, but I'm not sure if they're interested in developing the techniques for them just yet. The TSD lizards (mostly dragons within Australia) will likely not be bothered with for a long time as completely different techniques are required and the market is small.

 

[dailyskin]

I am completely happy to drop off a fresh shed from our 1 year old python? My parents live in Burwood... Let me know

 

[W.T.BUY]

Other lizards can be sexed, but I'm not sure if they're interested in developing the techniques for them just yet. The TSD lizards (mostly dragons within Australia) will likely not be bothered with for a long time as completely different techniques are required and the market is small.

bummer that sux. Surely there is a bigger market for dragons then there is Colubrids

 

[FROGGIESrCUTEo_O]

That sounds great!
Diva's coming up for a shed soon so I'll see

 

[TWENTY B]

i was all keen until i remembered you live in mexico. Not burwood sydney.

How fresh do you need. Few hours or few days?

 

[CodeRed]

I'll happily send you down some Chondro sheds. Can I post them?

 

[pythonmum]

Too bad it's not Burwood, Sydney. I'd love a double check on my albino and het! Still a couple more weeks before they are due to shed, however.

 

[Crazy_Snake08]

very interesting

 

[Sdaji]

I don't have a lot of time this evening, so I'll have to make this post quick.

I've had a lot of interest, not surprisingly, which is great to see! Much of it has been from interstate and I'll look into some of the queries next week. It's a long weekend so most of us will be kicking back relaxing at home, away from the lab, and away from the topic all together, so answers will be a little while.

The main two questions I'll answer next week are:

-Whether or not we'll accept posted sloughs. We can certainly do them if you want to put your fresh sloughs in the freezer, then air freight them down in an esky with ice, and arrange for a courier to take them from the airport to the laboratory. If you like I can arrange the courier for around $100 and freight will probably cost you about $50, plus a $3 esky and ice. Less than $200 is pretty good for a few grand worth of DNA testing!

-Whether or not we'll do the sloughs you've asked about (I'll respond to each email individually)

A number of people have asked about the accuracy of the results. While it is not entirely possible to guarantee the lab won't burn down, unless something severely bad happens you should get results. If you get results, they'll be good (you won't get false results, the worst result which is at all likely is no result).

When it comes to testing for albino hets, there is quite a high chance of null results (no data). Again, if there are results they'll be accurate, but we're likely not to be able to develop those techniques. Once the technique is developed for each species it will be quick, reliable and relatively cheap, but developing it is full on stuff. I expect we'll get plenty of albino Carpet samples, and we have another albino snake species sampled (the owner wishes the species to be kept quiet for now), but it would be brilliant if we could get some others, such as Olives, Antaresia, Blue-tongueds and anything else you might quietly have.

For those who have asked, yes, I have a background in genetics, but I won't be doing this genetic testing personally. I will be discussing the results with the genetics team in the lab at Deakin, and I'll be able to give you an explanation from a geneticist's perspective of the results and data, and the whole process involved if you're interested. I'll do my best to use layman's language, but no promises!

Please, if you email requests for sexing, include as much detail as you can. If you simply say 'I have some snakes I'd like sexed' or 'can you sex my goannas?' I can't really respond with anything other than "I need more information".

Thank you very much to everyone who has shown interest so far! Please consider that developing these techniques is something which would hugely benefit herpetoculture, so even if you already know the sexes of your animals, donating sloughs would be a really great thing for all of us. Also, remember that you can do it entirely annonymously. The folks in the lab really don't care a pinch about who is keeping what.

 

[Jason]

we have another albino snake species sampled (the owner wishes the species to be kept quiet for now)

you tease...haha. atleast tell us if its a type of carpet python?

 

[Sdaji]

You know those really, really bad days, where you pretty much just want to kill everyone and everything in sight? Yeah, I've just had one of those...

Anyway...

An update on the situation. Firstly, we've had a heap of offers of Chondro skins, far more than we can process, so if you're wanting to help us out with Green Pythons, thank you/sorry, but we have enough offers.

It looks like we also have enough sloughs from Rough-scaled Pythons, Carpet Pythons.

It would be great if we could get sloughs from:


Good news to those from interstate! Today I discussed the situation with the testers, and yes, sloughs can be posted. Keep your fresh sloughs in the freezer, then just pop them into clean plastic bags, one slough per bag, clearly labelled (you can just write the label on a piece of paper and pop them into the bag with the sloughs if that's easiest). No expensive freight or couriers required! Phew! This should help to make it convenient to donate your sloughs, even if you're in Melbourne, as they can obviously be posted from here too - no drive across town necessary.

Also on the DNA stability issue, I believe that old sloughs will quite possibly work. As you'd expect, we're using PCR, so highly degraded DNA should still be fine. To test this I have kindly offered to have some old sloughs of my own tested (yes, I say 'kindly' with an arrogant tongue firmly planted in an arrogant cheek ). If I don't say, people will probably ask, so I'll be donating Tiger Snake, Children's Python, Death Adder, Water Python and Woma sloughs. Donations of Death Adder, other Antaresia and non-Victorian Tiger sloughs would still be appreciated. If the old sloughs of mine yield usable DNA, there will be no problem at all with posted sloughs.

I discussed concerns about accuracy today, and at this stage they're telling me that things are somewhat uncertain. I have not yet looked over the results and can't comment, but I'll be doing so with the data on my own sloughs and will report when the results are in. I've been given an estimated turn around time of less than one week, so results will be in soon, particularly if I can convince them to work over the weekend (perhaps a tall order; I can certainly tell you that I absolutely will not be taking part in any activity resembling the w-word!).

I still have to write up a sheet of the samples we have pledged so that I can report on exactly what we have and need (incidentally, I'm involved entirely out of my own time as a volunteer). What is of most use is sloughs of animals of known sex, and the basic idea is that with most species we'll sex 5-10 'unknowns' for you if you provide us with at least one slough of each gender for that species. With the species less easy to get hold of in good numbers, we'll be more likely to take whatever we can get.

Most people offering sloughs have clearly been doing so for their own personal gain (most offers have been Chondro sloughs), but I hope people realise that donating your sloughs will really help the reptile community in developing laboratory techniques for herps. The same lab is also looking into new treatments for reptile diseases such as Cryptosporidium, and the more help they get the more likely they'll be able to help us with various genetic and health services. If you're willing to send in sloughs of common species of known sex, it would be great.

If you're worried about annonymity issues, it's even easier now with the post system, as you can email me from whatever address you like and I can simply give you serial numbers to label your sloughs with and notify you of the results by email. No face or name required, and honestly, no one involved in the project really cares about who owns what (unless you have albino Water Pythons, in which case I'll be begging to be put on the list ).

One final note is that once I have the results for my own snakes and we're satisfied that everything is working well, there may be the chance to have your snakes sexed by DNA cheaply while things are in the early stages.

I'll post again when I have more information. I'm having a little trouble keeping up with all the emails, and many of the questions come up again and again, so it would be great if people could post questions in the thread so I only have to answer them once and can easily keep track of them.

you tease...haha. atleast tell us if its a type of carpet python?

Yeah, I know, I'm a big fat tease! No, it's not a Carpet Python, thank goodness.

 

[Sdaji]

Quick update, the lab has the first few samples and testing will begin shortly. The data should be in next week from this lot and once we've had a chance to go over things we'll assess the situation and put in requests from those who have offered sloughs - thank you again!

The next update should be mid to late next week. If I get a chance before then I'll post a more exact list of what we're still after.

 

[baxtor]

The main two questions I'll answer next week are:

-Whether or not we'll accept posted sloughs. We can certainly do them if you want to put your fresh sloughs in the freezer, then air freight them down in an esky with ice, and arrange for a courier to take them from the airport to the laboratory. If you like I can arrange the courier for around $100 and freight will probably cost you about $50, plus a $3 esky and ice. Less than $200 is pretty good for a few grand worth of DNA testing!
.

Glad it turned out that posting them is OK, for a fleeting moment there it was looking a little "Nigerian":lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

[Sdaji]

Glad it turned out that posting them is OK, for a fleeting moment there it was looking a little "Nigerian":lol::lol::lol::lol:

Um, who would be trying to gain what?

 

[Sdaji]

At a quick glance, it looks like we're fine for Black-headeds, Rough-scaleds, Chondros, Womas, Carpets (including albinos), Children's Pythons, Water Pythons and Victorian Tiger Snakes (much of which still needs to be posted in).

What we'd still like is:

Albino, het and regular Olives, locality Death Adders other than Barklies (for a non-sexing project, but we can still sex them for you), Scaleless Death Adders (not so much for sexing, but we'll still sex them for you if you like), Monitors of known sex, and colubrids (preferably of known sex).

Thank you very much to those who have offered their support by pledging sloughs!

Oh, one last thing, I absolutely will not be giving out anyone's details or even passing yours on by request. This project is for developing genetic techniques, not for hooking anyone up with anything.

 

[Sdaji]

Albino and possibly normal Olives have been sourced (thank you!). If someone can provide one non-albinism-carrying Olive slough that would be great.

The monitors seem to be covered now, but if you're willing you can still contact me and I'll put you on the 'just in case we need them' list.

Still seeking Colubrid sloughs and Death Adders.