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Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:17 am Post subject: Hibernating and Breeding
Just wanted to know if anyone to tell me when is the proper time for a tegu to go into hibernation and when do they normally come out. also is it mandatory that tegus be seperated before breeding and if so for how long normally. Also can anyone tell me if they know how to tell if a tegu is het for blue and or white faced.
Thanks,
Jodi
1 Adult Female B&W Argentine poss. white faced
1 Adult Male B&W argentine possible het for Blue
1 juvinile possible female poss. white faced.
Just wanted to know if anyone to tell me when is the proper time for a tegu to go into hibernation and when do they normally come out.
That would be winter and spring time, respectively,
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also is it mandatory that tegus be seperated before breeding and if so for how long normally.
Only males need to be separated, they'll commonly fight during this time. However, other people on the forum will tell you otherwise.
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Also can anyone tell me if they know how to tell if a tegu is het for blue and or white faced.
Sigh......the answer you're looking for doesn't exist, nor is this really applicable to tegus. Specific colour patterns and whether something is heterozygous for a trait became fashionable out of the snake trade, particularly with cornsnakes. These had the advantage that the wild trait was pretty much uniform and massive breeding projects were able to create mutants and clearly work out the genetics behind the colour patterns that were expressed. Tegus are highly polymorphic and lack a true, uniform wild type pattern, nor have they been bred selectively for long enough to develop the genetics behind the colours expressed. Some breeders will tell you otherwise, but they're just pulling your leg for a bigger buck. About the only thing that can be described as "het" is whether the animal is a hybrid between species, and even these are often erroneous as many people are designating species solely on colour.
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: Blue tegu or Possibly
Well it should be somewhat possible what if only one parent is a blue and the other one is a B&W, ok well how would you tell if your female is a white faced. or a Juvinile is a white faced
i think that it is just a matter of comparing pictures
Jodi
Well your tegu believe it or not
is very clever lil buggar. No matter
how much you try its going to sense
the daylight times and seasons changes no matter what
you do. (of course I'm refering to my personal exp.)
Umm I have my window block with blanket and
the door to my room remain close at all times.
and Tila still go to sleep when the sun goes down
No matter how long I leave the light on. Brat even
knows when the sun comes up. Basiclly i'm saying
its going to know when it going to be winter and will start
preparing for its hibernation. So before The Season change
from fall to winter *about 2months before it change* start gettting her ready for it. I'm going to love it this time around seeing how
that will give my roaches, rats and myself time to build up for
the next year its going to be great! Cant wait for hibernation.
Sigh......the answer you're looking for doesn't exist, nor is this really applicable to tegus. Specific colour patterns and whether something is heterozygous for a trait became fashionable out of the snake trade, particularly with cornsnakes. These had the advantage that the wild trait was pretty much uniform and massive breeding projects were able to create mutants and clearly work out the genetics behind the colour patterns that were expressed. Tegus are highly polymorphic and lack a true, uniform wild type pattern, nor have they been bred selectively for long enough to develop the genetics behind the colours expressed. Some breeders will tell you otherwise, but they're just pulling your leg for a bigger buck. About the only thing that can be described as "het" is whether the animal is a hybrid between species, and even these are often erroneous as many people are designating species solely on colour.
Not quite true as the albino trait is a proven simple recessive trait. And there certainly can be "het" for albino.
In the most general sense, albinism is characterized by the inability to produce the specific pigment melanin. And this is where the "simple trait" stops. It unfortunately isn't that simple. Some people consider the lack of any pigment to equate albinism, which isn't true, it has to be the lack of melanin. Because of their lack of understanding, some people equate leucistic with albino. Secondly, there isn't just a single gene that can be responsible for the albino phenotype. In type 1 albinism, there is some mutation that creates a defect in tyrosinase, which metabolizes tyrosine into melanin. In type 2 albinism, the oculocutaneous albinism II gene is affected, which impedes the production of P protein, which is somehow involved in melanocytes production of melanin. Both types look regularly albino, and are fully homozygous for albinism, but breed a type 1 with a type 2 and you'll have regularly pigmented offspring. Not true breeding after all, is it?
Add in the fact that type 1 and type 2 can have mutations not in just one specific allele, but in any part of the pathway leading up to their specific endproduct. So under this scenario, it is possible to breed a type 1 with another type 1 and get normally pigmented offspring as well.
Then there are location restricted albinism, where the albino phenotype is restricted to certain parts of the body. This can be the effect of genetics, or the result of a different disease entirely.
I've seen quite a few albino tegus, a number of which I wouldn't exactly call albino as they still had significant black pigmentation, others where I'd hazard the guess that they weren't the same recessive mutants because the albino expression was clearly quite different. Sure, when they're albino, they're homozygous for something, and cross bred back with a wild type they can be called het albinos, but I'd then ask for what type, and I'm sure they won't be able to tell you.
The unfortunate truth is that when some breeders wind up with some albinos in a clutch, they'll then later breed brother to sister in order to ensure they get the appropriate homozygous condition. I'm not into unnatural morphs as many are, but even if I were, I'd still think this practice was unconscionable and wouldn't want to support it.
So yes, I'd have to concede that you could be fairly certain of getting an albino het, but would you be sure what type of albino het is was? I stand by my statement that so far, we are unfamiliar with the genetics involved in colour patterning in tegus to make any such claim.
Call the trait what you want, albino(type 1/2 or T+/T-), amel, hypo, lucistic, etc. What you call the trait, or what the trait actually may be is not what is in question. The fact remains that what is known as the "albino" mutation in the tegu world is a well proven simple recessive trait and it does breed true as such. There's variations in many simple recessive morphs. The "pieballed" morph in ball pythons produces some babies with a small amount of white, while others may be 99% white. This doesn't mean that the mutation doesn't breed true. With tegus, if you breed an "albino" to an "albino" you get 100% albino babies. If you breed an "albino" to a het you get on average 50% albino and 50% hets. If you breed an "albino" to a normal you get all 100% hets and so on. It's been reproduced many times by many breeders.
Just as an example, say you have a type I tegu genotype aaBB, and a type II tegu genotype AAbb (A being the allele for tyrosinase, B being the P protein allele). Both are albinos. You cross them, and you will have AaBb young, none of which have the homozygous recessive allele necessary to produce albino offspring. Is this incorrect?
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