sub species?

[arandb]

So I've got the whole homo and het genetics down, is there anything someone could point me towards on learning about afghans/mont/fascio? and how do those figure into morphs? afghan X norm = norm or afghan?
Thank you,
Brett

 

[Laska]

their just considered crosses I have one thats a MAcularis x afGhAN- so its a Macularis x Afghan lol or I call her Magan Dont confuse yourself with the sub species- if their crosses their crosses. SO if you had Montanous to Afghan= Mont. x Afghan theres no secret code or name for it in my book.

 

[arandb]

Thank you, I kinda figured it was like that just wanted to make sure

 

[Laska]

Not a problem! I'm glad you asked, labeling things nowadays can be tricky luckily this part is really simple

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

Personally I think there are very few pure or true macularius in circulation. When this hobby began no one cared about subspecies. They just wanted leopard geckos and that's what was imported. I would venture to say there is a mix of subspecies in just about any long term morph or project. Also, once a subspecies is crossed into any other sub...it can NEVER be a Afghan/Mont/Etc. again. It will always be a cross and eventually take back seat to the other genetics involved. JMHO

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I agree with Travis. Other than the few pure sub-species/localities we have here in the US, ALL of our leopard geckos are mutts. Anything crossed with a pure sub-species/locality geckos is just that... a cross.

 

[Chuck Pritzel]

Also, once a subspecies is crossed into any other sub...it can NEVER be a Afghan/Mont/Etc. again. It will always be a cross and eventually take back seat to the other genetics involved. JMHO

That's not entirely true. Since almost all of the genes between subspecies are the same to begin with, maybe only 100 to 1000 genes will be "other" in the first generation. Every time you breed back to a "pure" specimen, the offspring will not inherit (statistically) half of the "other subspecies" genes. After only 10 or so generations most of the resulting specimens will have not inherited any of the "other subspecies" genes, and no test you could devise (short of using a time machine) would be able to tell if such an individual had been descended from an ancestor who belonged to another subspecies.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

I don't agree with this. The biggest problem is it is all "statistically". Statistically if I breed a Mack Snow to a normal I should get 50/50...we have all seen those odds play out in favor and against you. Only in Leopard geckos can you cross a sub species into a raptor and still call it by its sub species name. Once it is crossed it can NEVER be pure again and the problem now is getting a true WC animal. Not something ch in Germany which you can't guarantee genetics on them. Even if it is only 1/10000 of the genes from the original sub species have changed...it is NOT a sub (pure), its a cross.

 

[Chuck Pritzel]

I don't agree with this. The biggest problem is it is all "statistically". Statistically if I breed a Mack Snow to a normal I should get 50/50...we have all seen those odds play out in favor and against you.

Statistically doesn't mean a result should be an exact number, it means the prediction is a curve and the results become more and more likely to match the curve as the sample size increases. It is only useful if it's properly applied. Individual Mack snow clutches do not debunk statistics because it doesn't predict a sample of 12 will be split evenly every time. In fact, the smaller the sample, the more likely your result is to NOT be 50/50. Consider flipping two coins, your results are just as likely to not be 1/1 as they are to be 1/1. But if you flip 100 coins, the vast majority of results will be very similar to 50/50.

Once it is crossed it can NEVER be pure again

You do realize that all modern geckos from the various subspecies are descended from a common ancestor who wasn't any of those subspecies. This is why it is not useful to consider anything to be "pure" in any sort of absolutist way. There is no static 'essence of gecko' to which any specimen can be compared to see if it's a match. The genome is always changing. Any definition of "pure" is impossible to reconcile with reality.

Even if it is only 1/10000 of the genes from the original sub species have changed...it is NOT a sub (pure), its a cross.

By your definition, with only an astronomically small number of exceptions, every single gecko that hatches (no matter what the parents were) is also not "pure" because nearly all individuals carry novel mutations. In humans the number averages about 60 per individual. By your own definition you have never hatched a pure gecko and never will.

Consider it this way, take 100 buckets, put 100 red (other species) marbles and 100 blue (so-called pure) marbles in each bucket and stir. Now randomly remove 100 marbles from each bucket and replace them with 100 blue marbles and stir again and we'll call this one generation. This is an equivalent of the sorting/crossover/mixing of genes that occurs when producing offspring. To illustrate the results, I did this with 200,000 buckets in Excel. (I can post the xls if you'd like to run it yourself.)

After only 7 generations, only 55% of buckets have any red marbles left in them. After 20 generations, only 26 out of 200,000 had any red marbles left. None made it past the 22nd generation. A tiny number (183) were cleaned out in only 4 generations. This doesn't mean they have 1% of other genes left or even one in a million, it means not a single gene from the subspecies ancestor is present. This is not at all similar to never.

Now to add to this, every time you pour in 100 new marbles, flip a coin and if it lands on heads, add 99 blue and 1 yellow marble to represent mutations that are going to occur. After a few generations, not only are you unlikely to have any red marbles left, in those that do, the number of yellow marbles is even more likely to outnumber the number of red marbles.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

After all this...I still stand with my previous statements. I also know and have never claimed to have hatched a pure gecko. Quoting everything I say and break it down and disprove it with graphs still doesn't change my point. This is all well explained and would be a great argument if we were discussing inheritance and true percentage of similar gene transfers. However, you overshot yourself because I was talking about NAMING subspecies. Appreciate the analogy and look forward to the next genetic debate.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I think that where most people get confused with leopard gecko genetics is they think of it more of a statistical theory where it is really a simple ratio and probability theory. When considering statistical analysis, there is really no limit in the number of data points and there will always be a few that fall off of the population curve, thus factoring in sigma values. In reality, we are looking at percentages and probabilities based on a number of 100. There is no way any single female leopard gecko will lay 100 eggs in her lifetime, so even with probability in morph genetics we can't make accurate predictions.

As far as the original topic regarding 'pure' subspecies, we can apply the probability theory backwards, like in negative numbers. A simple calculation I follow in this case is, PURE x MUTT = MUTT.