Lineage and selective breeding

[Speleomander]

I'm going to use white collar as an example here, but a variety of desirable traits could be used interchangeably. For the sake of discussion though, let's say you're trying to selectively breed for white collars. When choosing your breeders, would you go for one with a big white collar that was produced by parents with little or no white collar or would you prefer one with a small dirty collar from parents with big white collars that consistently produce white collared offspring? The reason I ask is because I've seen breeders sharing pictures of siblings and other closely related animals, oftentimes with more desirable coloration or other features than the animal for sale. So I'm wondering if a less nice individual from a stellar lineage is more desirable than a standout individual with less desirable lineage? My instinct would be to go for the latter and prioritize the animal being bred over its parents/grandparents when selecting for a particular trait, but I'm curious if those of you who've produced a lot from different pairings think differently?

 

[Michael]

This is a great topic. In 2019, I bought a number of chahoua that were not visually high white, but come from lines known for producing high white animals. I have to wait a bit to see what the results are on those, but to answer your question and reflect on my own experiences, I will always buy a less white animal from lines with proven high white over generations.

I can think of a few high white animals that miraculously popped out of pairs or lines with no previous history of those traits... and those animals often do not reproduce those traits as consistently, or at all.

Animals that come from high white lines have proven genetics to give you what you're after... the other can be more of an anomaly.

Astri/Bird Poop comes to mind...

 

[ET Geckos]

There have been a number of people I have actually told "If you aren't looking to spend a lot but you want high white genetics, buy a lesser white sibling." I did this myself and it worked out fantastically. I know this has worked for a couple others that have bought a lesser white animal from my high white lines as well.

 

[ArborealsAnonymous]

Most of my collection is because i intentionally bought the "ugly" siblings to really nice animals that were in my budget, and I have been pretty pleased with my offspring so far...

 

[MelissaSR]

I’m a firm believer color > collar. For me an animal with a big white collar is nice, but if that’s all it is bringing to the table, it’s bland. I want to see color, contrast, unique pattern, these are what is important to me. I feel often many breeders focus in the high white because let’s face it, it does stand out, especially in the beginning when the colors were not as intense, it was the unique factor. So many people focused on just that aspect instead of improving on color. It seemed like when I first got involved in chahoua the choice for vibrant color was GT, and pastel was about as colorful as you could get with PI as most were dark red and greens. Now it’s like a divided market, high white collars on bland animals, or pastels, then you have the high color chases who are making some serious brilliantly contrasted and intense colors, but lack the really clean white collars. Then there is the small group of individuals who got it right and produce those intense colored GT with the collars...very small group, I love this group of people, I want to be in this group but for now I will settle for the nice colors and keep working in the collar aspect.

A non white collar or a minimal white collar from nice white collar lines still gives you the same chances to improve on the collars in your animals. Although I don’t produce a ton of high white collars my goal is to reach that good color/collar mix and to achieve that I will still continue to look at animals with less than stellar collars, as long as they maintain that color/contrast I like. Buying a large white collar lacking in the color department, or a pastel with an over all yellow hue would actually take me a step back in the direction I want to go.

 

[Speleomander]

I can think of a few high white animals that miraculously popped out of pairs or lines with no previous history of those traits... and those animals often do not reproduce those traits as consistently, or at all.

This is interesting to me, because the idea behind selective breeding is to use animals expressing desirable traits and breed them to other animals expressing those traits. That's why using the "ugly clutchmate" because it has good genetics seems counterintuitive to me. An animal expressing desirable traits must have the proper genetics for them and should pass them on to some degree (though certain features may be non-genetic and the result of anomalies during incubation for example). Now I would've presumed that would result in more consistent expression than using the "ugly clutchmate" whose siblings all have high expression of whatever feature, but it sounds like that isn't the case in your experience.

Thanks to the others who responded as well. I just quoted Michael because he's the only one who mentioned experience with the "one off" individuals that express a trait strongly even if it isn't consistent in a lineage. While I don't doubt that the "ugly clutchmate" is still capable of producing very nice offspring, I would be interested in hearing more about results of breeding the surprise individual that looks much nicer than the rest of its immediate family since it sounds like more people have experience with the alternative. I just used white collar as an easy example, but breeding for size, red coloration, busy pattern, or any other specific feature would all be relevant. Just for fun though, here's a picture of a female I produced last year...neither parent has a white collar, haha.

 

[Michael]

This is interesting to me, because the idea behind selective breeding is to use animals expressing desirable traits and breed them to other animals expressing those traits. That's why using the "ugly clutchmate" because it has good genetics seems counterintuitive to me. An animal expressing desirable traits must have the proper genetics for them and should pass them on to some degree (though certain features may be non-genetic and the result of anomalies during incubation for example). Now I would've presumed that would result in more consistent expression than using the "ugly clutchmate" whose siblings all have high expression of whatever feature, but it sounds like that isn't the case in your experience.

Thanks to the others who responded as well. I just quoted Michael because he's the only one who mentioned experience with the "one off" individuals that express a trait strongly even if it isn't consistent in a lineage. While I don't doubt that the "ugly clutchmate" is still capable of producing very nice offspring, I would be interested in hearing more about results of breeding the surprise individual that looks much nicer than the rest of its immediate family since it sounds like more people have experience with the alternative. I just used white collar as an easy example, but breeding for size, red coloration, busy pattern, or any other specific feature would all be relevant. Just for fun though, here's a picture of a female I produced last year...neither parent has a white collar, haha.

Lovely female!

In my experience, you definitely have a better chance of getting what you're after if both parents express those traits... I think this is more closely tied to white collar than anything, because color can be all over the place. However, there are those random instances where you can buy a "less nice" clutchmate, or one who expresses those traits to a lesser degree, and still have the same luck.

Genetics on these geckos are still not fully understood, and hardly fail proof.

 

[ArborealsAnonymous]

My best example of this is my gecko, Mr Bones. I try really hard to get males that are siblings or offspring to amazing geckos because a high end male is surprisingly hard to come by. He is probably the least flashy baby out of ETs pair Padawan and Revan, but I really wanted a gecko from that pair and I couldn't afford one of the flashier ones. But Mr Bones has bred to a couple different girls for me and always has very flashy babies. Especially with males, I would rather go with a gecko that maybe doesn't look as desirable but has parents and siblings that look like what I want because your options are almost limitless then. If a pair consistantly throws a certain look and I can afford the one baby from them that maybe doesn't display the trait, i would get it because i know that the genetics are there and if paired carefully, can produce what I want.