Heteropaternal Superfecundation

[BlueTonguesOfSA]

If it can occur in humans, I'm positive that this occurs with BTS, but has it been documented in any pairings here?

By that, i mean a clear discernible genetic difference between offspring.

[Ophidiophile]

It definitely occurs in snakes and has occurred in some snake breedings I've conducted. The morphs that appeared in a single clutch could only have resulted from two different sires fertilizing the eggs. I'd be shocked if it didn't occur in BTS - matings with multiple males almost certainly can give rise to multiple paternity in a single clutch. Don't know if it has been definitively documented though.

By the way, way to use 12 syllables in two words.

[Katrina]

I'm not sure how you would document it in your own pairings... just visually seeing a clear difference in offspring wouldn't necessarily indicate superfecundation (unless you were breeding males of different species / subspecies or something).

I know that I have seen it mentioned in scientific articles, but I can't find any of them right now... I'll keep looking, unfortunately most of my Tiliqua journal articles were saved on a different hard drive...

[BlueTonguesOfSA]

(unless you were breeding males of different species / subspecies or something).

Pretty much what I was inquiring about. Hard to tell between two regular species of offspring short of DNA testing. Maybe Maury will do a special on BTS one day...?

[Ophidiophile]

You can do it without genetic testing pretty much the way I did using snake morphs.
For example, you could take a female Eastern that was double het for hypermelanism and albino and breed her to two males, one of which was het hypermel but not albino and another male, het for albino but not hypermel. If both albino and hypermel babies appeared in the clutch you'd have evidence for heterothingamabob superwhoseewhatsis.

[BlueTonguesOfSA]

Very true, thanks for laying the ground work. I'll head to wal-mart after work today and just pick up a double het eastern BTS. Last time, I ordered a Hypo Eastern online and once i got there, they were sold out. I had to go to BTS 'R' Us all the way across town.

Just messin' with ya'

[Katrina]

Very true, thanks for laying the ground work. I'll head to wal-mart after work today and just pick up a double het eastern BTS. Last time, I ordered a Hypo Eastern online and once i got there, they were sold out. I had to go to BTS 'R' Us all the way across town.

Just messin' with ya'

Haha - that was my thoughts exactly! It is easy to prove, but most people don't have the right blueys for it. I guess I could pair northern and merauke males with a female and hope to see both in the offspring... I'm not sure if anyone on the forum has proof, but I have read about it in articles so I'm positive that it has been proved in Tiliqua from a science point of view.

[Jeff]

If your only goal is to prove/disprove the hypothesis, you could just use two males of extremely different species. If you bred a female Blotched to a male eastern, and a male shingleback, I’m fairly sure you would be able to tell which sperm was responsible for each baby.

[BlueTonguesOfSA]

Well, I already have a case where this scenario is ongoing. I have a female northern that I've seen tie-up with two radically (at least in my eyes) different male northerns. Orange portholes are enclosed in black outline in one male and completely open in the other. Also, one male had higher amounts of red as a baby, this is the trait i'm trying to emphasize.

[Jeff]

The only problem with that is that the off-spring from one male can vary greatly. I only allow one male to breed with each female because I want to be able to tell people exactly who the parents of their skink is. I have a ridiculously orange male that I bred with a normal female last year. Half the babies came out orange, and half came out normal.

[Dood]

Considering it is well documented in multiparous mammals and some captive bred reptiles, I don't see why tiliqua would be any different, especially considering the females ability to store viable sperm for long periods of time. I would actually think it would be the norm in the wild.

[Scotts1au]

My experience is that it happens in blueys. Last year amoungst a bunch of Alpines I had one pop out that was clearly an intergrade with a lowland - didn't remove the male at the right time. Will post some photos.

[Scotts1au]

Finally got around to adding the photos.

Has all of the hallmarks of an intergrade between lowland and alpine. Bummer

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I think Eugene the lowland snuck one past the goalie.