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Leopard Gecko Genetics

22 13:36:26

Question
I am planning to breed my female and male leopard geckos. My female has a carrot tail, no spots on her body, an orange body, and a light-yellow colored stripe down her back. My male looks pretty normal. Can you tell me what their offspring are most likely going to look like?

Answer
NO...  But I can tell you about the genetics.

We assume that your male is a "normal," meaning he has only normal genes.

We also assume that the traits your female displays are recessive.  Meaning they will only show up when paired with similar traits.

This means that if you breed the two of them your male will contribute a normal (dominate) gene for each pattern trait and your female will contribute a recessive one.  The offspring would then be of the heterozygous genotype for the various pattern traits. Meaning they would be Nn (having one normal gene and one recessive).  

Because they would have a normal/dominate gene they would look (phenotype) normal but carry the recessive trait(s).  If you breed those babies together (which is ok in reptile land) about 25% should come out looking like your recessive phenotyped female.  If you took one of the male offspring and bred it back to the mother about 50% would come out recessive.

Digest that and let me know if you have further questions.