BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I seen ST punnet's square on her website, which I learned in school, but I don't know how to use it to real-world things.

Would you have to breed it to a normal Indonesian? To see if the babies come out Het. and some that contain the gene? or to see if the babies come out mixed-bred containing black, but still brown (Since it has not been proven if truly axanthic)?

This is confusing asking..

I thought this fit the advanced better, but feel free to move it.

I don't know if someone has actually attempted this, but is this the way to actually tell?

best way would be to breed 2 so called axanthics or hets there of and see what they produced,only by breeding will u get answers i guess,tje more u breed outside that morph,eg to normals the more u cant gaurantee hets,the percentage of possable hets drops say from 100 percent hets down to 66 percent hets to 33 percent hets to just possable hets

ive never seen any hets of indo axanthics for sale,usually imports,which makes me wonder if they should be called axanthics at all,they appear to be just a colorform of indo thats naturally occuring,similar to wild black and silver new england cunninham skinks as appoased to the copperybrown to reddish and black variety

a case of the morph craze perhaps,add a morph name and folk go nuts,it increases prices yadda yadda yadda

i think pieces20 breeds true eastern axanthics,maybe he could give a more accurate answer

Eastern Axanthic? Are you referring to the so called "Hypermelanistic" Blue-Tongued Skink?

dakotanivens wrote:Eastern Axanthic? Are you referring to the so called "Hypermelanistic" Blue-Tongued Skink?

I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for Richard, but I'm going to say no he wasn't referring to the hypermelanistic easterns. He really meant axanthic.

ReptileKing wrote:

dakotanivens wrote:Eastern Axanthic? Are you referring to the so called "Hypermelanistic" Blue-Tongued Skink?

I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for Richard, but I'm going to say no he wasn't referring to the hypermelanistic easterns. He really meant axanthic.

Oh wow.. I have never seen one.. maybe someone could attach a photo?

You are correct, the way to test for the gene is to breed an 'axanthic' to a normal.

If the axanthic is simply a colour, the babies will come out a mix between axanthic/normal (think if a person with dark skin has a child with a person of very light skin, the baby will probably be in the middle).
If the axanthic is a dominant trait (meaning that having one morph-gene will make the trait show), either all the babies will be axanthic (meaning the parent likely caries 2 of the dominant genes, each baby would therefor have one) or some babies would be normal and some axanthic (meaning the parent has one axanthic gene and one normal gene).
If the axanthic is a heterogenous trait (meaning needs both genes for the trait to show) the babies will all look normal but carry the axanthic gene (het-axanthic). A baby would then need to be bred back to the parent or another axanthic to prove out the gene (half the babies would then be axanthic, a quarter would carry the gene, and a quarter would be totally normal).

There are other types of genes (co-dom, etc) but dominant and co-dominant are the most common. Axanthic in most species is a heterogenous trait.

Breeding two axanthics together doesn't prove much of anything. Whether they're both actual axanthics or both just a colour trait, the babies will likely look like them regardless.

I can go into a lot more detail if needed (including the punnets squares). Genetics is very interesting

I am actually surprised that no one has attempted this.. if so, I have never heard about it.

If I ever get an Axanthic, definitely getting an Indonesian, to try this out.

thats if the indos are actually true axanthics,very strong chance they arent a true axanthic,but theres no denying they are nice looking

dakotanivens wrote:I am actually surprised that no one has attempted this.. if so, I have never heard about it.

If I ever get an Axanthic, definitely getting an Indonesian, to try this out.

There is A LOT that has not been "attempted" with blue tongues...relatively little information on them out there and the few people that might try stuff like this tend to not share any information...

dakotanivens wrote:I am actually surprised that no one has attempted this.. if so, I have never heard about it.

If I ever get an Axanthic, definitely getting an Indonesian, to try this out.

Of all the many, many indos that have successfully been bred in captivity I'm shocked that people haven't tried to prove genetic theories!

Very little is known about this kind of stuff and the few people that are working with different morphs of blueys are quite secretive for good reasons. And lots of the very serious keepers with the rarer species don't spend time on the forum.

Katrina wrote:

dakotanivens wrote:few people that are working with different morphs of blueys are quite secretive for good reasons.

What is the reason?

There are lots of reasons. A few would be that if you are working on something very new and exciting, you don't want to advertise it before you have any success. Especially with new morphs and things - you want to be the first to produce something so you don't want others knowing what you're working on and potentially copying and you also don't want to talk about it until you actually know what you have. No point in bragging about what you are working on until you can show the results. Another good reason is because of annoying people who would ask a hundred questions about what you're doing and want to reserve babies etc. If you're breeding very rare and valuable reptiles what few you want to sell should go to others with aspirations and the means to breed, it is a long time before they will be sold to pet owners. But over excited young kids who think they are really cool can waste a lot of time asking questions and likely won't be able to afford them anyway (and aren't the buyer you want anyway).

This forum is more of a pet focus and lots of super experienced people don't waste time on here because you can't have the advanced discussions without having people with one bluey and very little experience chiming in and thinking that their observations with one bluey is pertinent (or to ask lots of questions)... we were hoping to try to have an area for advanced discussion with this subforum but it really isn't working - it is just separating out breeding type threads but no one really thinks before they post in here.

As Kat says there is very little evidence one way or the other, given that gigas gigas (Indonesian) blueys are rarely bred in captivity and these types/locales from Halmahera island are pretty new to the hobby. I think that axanthic is a double recessive genetic trait. I have what I think are three pure axanthics and one het. Yes, I would love to breed them to test things out, but no joy so far!

Mark.

I can't wait to hear about it when you're successful with your group, Mark. The question of whether it's a genetic morph haunts me. I just adore the look of silver & black indos I've got all my fingers crossed for you.

I hope somebody somewhere finally proves this out/shares it! They are gorgeous!

Trouble is a lot of traits are not controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance.

Hi all,
Axanthic is a simple recessive. Normal x axanthic gives all 100percent het axanthic . Het axanthic x het axanthic gives 25 percent axanthic. Kat the reason some of us choose to stay off some of the forums is that at times the moderators allow keyboard assassins to berate the hard work some of us are doing. A lot of the genetics of the bluies is new and some of the new colours I've produced have not followed traditional snake line genetics. I refuse to go on some forums for these very reasons.

pisces20 wrote:Hi all,
Axanthic is a simple recessive. Normal x axanthic gives all 100percent het axanthic . Het axanthic x het axanthic gives 25 percent axanthic. Kat the reason some of us choose to stay off some of the forums is that at times the moderators allow keyboard assassins to berate the hard work some of us are doing. A lot of the genetics of the bluies is new and some of the new colours I've produced have not followed traditional snake line genetics. I refuse to go on some forums for these very reasons.

Good to see you posting Roger. I met you at the Penrith expo earlier in the year. Would love to see some pictures of any of your funky stuff.

Cheers,
Dave.