[tombo46]

as some of you know, I took on a few Tokay Morphs recently that were part of charles thompsons breeding project. one of these was his Calico Male.

I also took on 3 offspring from some of his morphs. one of which is a calico x calico. from what I understand. there are 3 calico gene's. is there any way of telling them apart? chaz was hoping that the calico x calico had the same genes in them thus producing homozygous offspring. so far however it has not shown any of the calico gene. the only thing that has happened is it is permenantly dark. they have also still got a lot of growing to do (despite being 2 years old) and I was wondering if the gene starts to show as the Tokay develops and gains weight (currently 45g) or is it the age?

has anyone else produced visuals from breeding calico x calico or from linebreeding?

any information on this gene would be massively appreciated!

all the best

Tom

[Ophidiophile]

Yes from both my own experience and talking to others I know there are at least 3 incompatible lines of calico. To make matters even more complex, some lines of the calico trait may not be determined by a single gene. Out of quite a number of calico x calico crosses that I've hatched out, one animal that I kept developed white patches at about a year. I sold it so I'm not sure what has happened since. One member here also has several of my offspring from this same cross and one has gone through amazing changes - from red spotted to granite spotted - and now may be developing white patches on its head. I believe it's at least 18 months old. The 2 calico animals that produced all these CB offspring look quite different from one another and just in January I put the male with one of his female offspring and the female with one of her male offspring to try to see what line-breeding will do. Stay tuned!

[Riverside Reptiles]

I have a handful of David's calico x calico offspring. As he mentioned, they all look a bit "different", but one has changed multiple times and continues to do so. If you haven't already, check out the "Tokay Morph" thread that is stickied to the top of this forum. There's pics of her from the time she was a baby up until yesterday. The calico morph still remains quite a mystery IMO. Are these REALLY several incompatible strains of genetics? Or does it simply not breed true? Or, like David mentioned, maybe a combo of several genes.

I also hope to breed some of these offspring back to each other this year. So, we should get some more answers in the relatively near future. One thing we've proven for sure is that these guys can continue to change colors/patterns for many years. So, it may take a while before we fully unlock the mysteries behind how these genetics fully work.