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Thread: can anyone explain how blues are made?

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  1. #1
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    Default can anyone explain how blues are made?

    I am trying to understand the different variants of tegu and how they are made, do they do something different during incubation? How are albinos made? I seen the purple tiger at undergrounds video and the albino, I have a chacoan that has also me colors and temperament and I'm cuiouse what would happen if I breed with a blue or albino in the future

  2. #2
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    you cant make a blue, they are a locale and believed to be a different species all together but have yet to have their own separate name so they still are called Salvator merianae. albinos are a genetic trait that has only been found in blues, so if its an albino its an albino blue, in order to make albinos, the parents have to carry the albino gene. so if you breed an albino to a normal, you will get some het babies but not any albinos. you'd then have to breed 2 hets to make a visual albino. so if you breed your chacoan with a blue then you'd have chacoan x blue cross babies, but chacoans are still salvator merianae as well so you'd still have the same species. And if you bred with an albino, it'd be the same thing since they are blues too. so you'd have chacoan x blue babies that are het for albino. if only one parent carries the gene then the clutch would be split some normals and some hets, but since hets dont show any visual signs you'd have to say possible het. They would have to be bred to prove out if they carry the albino gene or not.. I hope all that made sense lol

  3. #3
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    Agree with most of the above, but there is a pair of albino reds in the US.

  4. #4
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    true, I forgot about those... but those are very very rare and you can tell visually tell the difference between an albino red and an albino blue.

  5. #5
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    No, blues are not believed to be a different species all together by anyone who knows the species. This is just wishful thinking by hobbyists who have bought into a tale told by people who couldn't tell one species from another. They could possibly be (I do not refute the fact that Salvator merianae could be further divided into more species), but at this moment there's no reason to assume they're anything other than Salvator merianae other than ignorance and hope. Considering that people have chosen what features make a blue (ie. they haven't selected the region or pedigree, they've selected traits that are available in the wide gene pool that is known as Salvator meriana), you indeed can make a blue (or to put it another way, no one asks "were both parents blues?", they look for certain characters that can just as easily come from other sources - but you can't make blues or most other morphs by manipulating incubation variables).

    Albinism is NOT a trait solely in the blue lineage. Albinism is present in all vertebrates. Albinism is an expression that can be presented by a number of faulty genes (there is no single albino gene). It is so evident in blues because blues are highly inbred (albinism typically presents in a wild population in 1 in about 10000 individuals - the fact that there aren't 10000 blues out there but there are a lot more than 1 albino out there indicates what is going on.....). Inbreeding promotes the likelihood of expressing deleterious genes. The reason people think there is a single "albino gene" is because you have to breed albinos of the same deleterious gene to produce more albinos. Albinism results from a lack of melanin. This can be arrived at by several faulty genes. There's the gene that encodes for the protein melanin. There's the gene that encodes for "shutting on" or "shutting off" the melanin gene. There's the gene that encodes for where melanin will be expressed. There are likely even more genes involved (such as precursor molecules to melanin). A double recessive fault in any one of these genes will result in an albino. However, breed a "faulty melanin gene" albino to a "faulty where-melanin-will-be-expressed gene" albino and you will not get albino offspring. This is where the inbreeding comes in. You breed relative to relative, and you increase the chance of getting that double recessive gene necessary for albinism because beings as they are related, they are likely to carry the same faulty gene instead of different faulty genes. For more indepth material on this topic, google "types of albinism".

    At this point in time, the genetics of tegu phenotypes is so very poorly understood that it is very difficult to predict what the resulting offspring of any conjugation will look like, whether within a species or crossing between species. Are "singed" noses dominant to "white head"? Are they codominants and therefore capable of mingling? Is "blue" recessive? Is orange belly a dominant, codominant, or recessive trait? No one can answer these questions currently.

  6. #6
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    well that made me feel stupid. lol

  7. #7
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    Yeah, we all get that feeling around tupinambis, lol.

    I have noticed the variances in the albinism of blues, but don't understand genetics enough to really understand it. I guess I will just have to put it simply as some blues seem to be what I like off as amelanistic and some seem just hypomelanistic. There is still so much out there to figure out.
    Laura R (FL)
    1.0.0 Colombian Tegu
    1.4.0 Argentine B&W Tegu
    1.2.0 Red Tegu
    1.2.0 B/WxRed Tegu
    1.0.0 Green Ameiva (yet another teiid)
    7 other lizards
    1 little gator
    3 FL box turtle
    1 Sulcata tortoise
    16 snakes
    5 fuzzy pets
    4 little frogs
    a bunch of creepy bugs
    and a partridge in a pear tree

  8. #8
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    Truth be told, I don't fully understand the genetics of albinism or some other aspects either, but I do have a bit of understanding of genetics to help me see it a little more clearly. For example, I understand how having a faulty "melanin" gene results in albinism. However, knowing what I do know of genetics, there are faults, and then there are FAULTS. In the same gene, it is conceptually possible that one base pair coding could result in a faulty melanin molecule that simply "collapses" (ie. total failure), while another base pair coding error could result in a faulty melanin molecule that is only slightly different from a normal melanin protein and results in a different colour tone. In this scenario you have a similar "albino" gene, but dissimilar albinos. Then there's the fact that there ARE other pigment molecules. Do tegus possess them? If so, then this is likely the basis for something like the purple tigers...but this is just speculation.

    SnakeCharmr, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel stupid. The blues is a confusing issue to many simply because they are unaware of the history behind the tale and because people LOVE to believe in far-fetched tales over cold fact (no condescension here, this is a scientifically demonstrated phenomenon - we are hardwired for belief over reason, this is theorised to be the basis of why religion is so prominent in the world despite how varying cultures are - believing in the outlandish seems to make us more comfortable with a world we don't fully understand). In this case, a pair of breeders imported some "Colombian tegus" from South America, and in their order they got half "Colombian tegu" and half something else. They had enough knowledge to know they had something different, but by their own reluctant admission, not enough to discern what species it could actually be, so they came up with the story that they had a new subspecies or even a new species, and hobbyists followed this because for some reason with reptile keepers they think if you breed an animal, you know everything about that animal (let me tell ya, I breed all kinds of mold in my fridge, but no one would consider me a Mycologist - despite the fact that I actually have taken Mycological courses....). The same story applies to several other types of tegus (albeit different breeders). Personally, I think if someone did a very stringent genetic study of Salvator merianae throughout South America, it could indeed wind up being a species complex. However, I would also point out that the whole concept of "species" really doesn't fit anymore in relation to how we now understand genetics and evolution. The concept of "species" hails from a time when we generally considered the form of organisms to be immutable. We now understand that genetics are quite variable and differ in time AND space: look up the phenomenon of "ring species" and contemplate the general layman's view of what a species is and you will see they do not match and that our idea of "species" seriously needs to be reconsidered.

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