"normal" with albino - what happens?

[sarkymite]

Right,
I have got 2 albino suturalis and 1 normal. If I keep them all together, will I get any albino babies? Or will the "normal" one's genes be dominant?
Thanks!!!

[Moracai]

I am pretty sure you need 2 albinos to get albino, unless the normal has an albino gene, which then increases the chances of the mix being albino.
I think..

[sezzy5889]

a dark skin margie and a white margie can produce babies with very light grey or cream skin i think but not white albinos, more leucistic, but if you've got 2 albino's then you have an increased chance of getting albino babies if they mate

[sarkymite]

Cool... so if I leave the 3 of them in the same tank, I'm likely to get some that were albino x albino and therefore likely to be albino, some which might be paler than the normal, and some which are just dark skinned. Hmm, I can't decide whether or not to keep the albinos seperate and increase the chances of albino babies.

[Ben snail]

These are my margies, they are all fully grown, the one in the middle is an ovum and the ones on the sides are albino suturalus.

[Paul]

Recessive traits shows themselves when dominant genes are absent. If a dominant gene is present any recessive traits get squashed. But it means people with a dominant trait can carry recessive traits. Future breeding with the right partner can allow these to come out in some of their offspring.

So, assuming one gene is responsible here are the possibilities.

DD = Normal (without albino gene)
Dr = Normal (with albino gene)
rr = Albino

DD × DD	= 100% DD
DD × Dr	=  50% DD, 50% Dr	
DD × rr	= 100% Dr	
Dr × rr	=  50% Dr, 50% rr	
Dr × Dr	=  25% DD, 50% Dr, 25% rr	
rr × rr	= 100% rr

So, in your case you would get:

Albino (rr) x Albino (rr) = 100% Albino (rr) Babies
Albino (rr) x Normal (DD) = 100% Normal babies but carrying an albino gene (Dr)

Breeding an albino baby (rr) with the normal babies from the above (Dr) would result in:

50% albinos (rr), 50% carrying the albino gene (Dr)

Breeding two of the normal babies from above (Dr) would be:

25% Normal (without albino gene) (DD), 50% normal carrying the gene (Dr) and 25% albino (rr)

That is assuming only 1 gene is responsible for colour. Sarah mentioned breeding a dark and light skinned together would produce some babies that are between colours. I'd expect that to be the case where both "traits" are the result of dominant genes. So if dominant genes were always the cause of colours in flowers, a red flower crossed with a white flower would produce pink flowers. Breeding the pink flowers together would produce 50% pink but would separate the colours back out for the other 50%. So in snail terms, light margies have light-colour dominant genes, and dark margies have dark-colour dominant genes. Breeding 2 snails of different skin colour should produce inbetween colours and then in successive generations a spread of both colours plus the crossed colour.

That isn't the case for albinoism, so I'd like to see what the results are from an albino/normal (non albino gene) cross and a albino/normal (with albino gene) because it would shed some light on what is at work.

I think the truth is that it is far more complex than 1 gene because the above is very much genetics for dummies and all I've ever learned lol. I'm sure it will be more complex, similar perhaps to eye colour in humans. In terms of albino/non-albino that isn't a factor as much because the albinos lack dominant genes, pigment-wise (I think) so we have a slightly more stable test.

There's an explanation of human eye colour here, which if nothing else shows how tricky it'd be to fathom:

www.seps.org/cvoracle/faq/eyecolor.html

I'm sure this must have been studied somewhere, I've just never pursued the task of looking for the research.

[section8angel]

You know, even I understood that. Holy shimoly well done Paul lol

I'm guessing there's no way to actually tell if a snail has the albino gene?

[danikat]

Sorry for replying to an old topic (assuming it's ok because it's sticky), I've got 2 albino rectic's on their way and I've been thinking about breeding them. To reduce the chances of inbreeding I was planning on getting some normal coloured ones to breed them with and came here to ask exactly this question.

I'm thinking this topic has given me another reason to try it, because I'd like to see what the results actually are.

[coyote]

Let us know how it goes.

[danikat]

Will do.

It'll be a while before theres any results because the ones I'm getting are babies and I've not even found another pair to breed them with but I'll definately be sharing the results when I do.

[crissy4445]

hang on can you breed different typs of snails at all? (not just albino + "normal") because i have a grove snail and a common snail.

[Deleted]

Mar 21, 2011 16:00:51 GMT crissy4445 said:

hang on can you breed different typs of snails at all? (not just albino + "normal") because i have a grove snail and a common snail.

Grove Snail: Cepea Hortensis / Cepea Nemoralis
Common: Helix Aspersa (sorry i just liked to correct you XP

Its unlikely but it has been done before but i guess you would end up with maybe rare babies or if they hatched in captivity and so these arnt really front the garden or wild im guessing you would end up with babies somepeople dont want as they might want only FULL H.A or FULL C.H/ C.N but if they dont have a lip then they arent adults so you would have to wait

[coyote]

I don't recall hearing anything about a Cepea and a Helix reproducing together.

I have had Otala and Helix mate, and Theba and Otala mate, but no eggs were laid as a result of the matings.

[Deleted]

Wow.. I find this very facinating, especially what you said about the genes Poul.

But I'm a bit confused (still). I've been googleling for albino snails, and came across expressions such as "jade", "rodatzi" and "jadatzi", and if I understood it correctly, jade is pure albino (white skin, yellow shell), rodatzi is light skin and yellow shell, and jadatzi is white skin and darker shell, right?
But is it possible to breed (in total) four different types of snails, just by having mainly albino and 'normal' snails? I'm guessing its only possible to get a jade if you breed two albinos, but how does rodatzi and jadatzi happen? Is it determined by the percentage of albino genes vs. 'normal' genes, or how does it work?

[Deleted]

I also have another question... I'm considering breeding snails, especially albino. But right now I only have a normal Achatina Achatina, and I really like them for their size. I'm going to get some Achatina Fulica eggs soon, and hopefully they will hatch, and then I got some potential breeding animals there.
But after my net search, I got the impression that albino Achatinax2 is much rarer, whine albino Fulica is more common. Is it harder to breed Achatinax2 as albinos, or are they just harder to breed in general, compared to Fulica?

[Cashell]

Mar 13, 2006 4:29:25 GMT Paul said:

Recessive traits shows themselves when dominant genes are absent. If a dominant gene is present any recessive traits get squashed. But it means people with a dominant trait can carry recessive traits. Future breeding with the right partner can allow these to come out in some of their offspring.

So, assuming one gene is responsible here are the possibilities.

DD = Normal (without albino gene)
Dr = Normal (with albino gene)
rr = Albino

DD × DD	= 100% DD
DD × Dr	=  50% DD, 50% Dr	
DD × rr	= 100% Dr	
Dr × rr	=  50% Dr, 50% rr	
Dr × Dr	=  25% DD, 50% Dr, 25% rr	
rr × rr	= 100% rr

I wonder if it works like this for brown-lipped snails too?

[Tomáš Protiva]

Genes for shell and genes for body colour are separated and don´t influence each other. So you can work with it like with two genes in case of fulica albino body or albino shell. Sometimes snails with dominant and recesive alleles have lighter colour of body or shell.
But problems can occur when you have imported snails or captive bred with not known origin and they could have many things in their genes and results are not so clear. It could be laso much more complicated in snails and not always it is working only according these simple rules.

[muddydragon]

Jan 21, 2014 10:12:24 GMT Tomáš Protiva said:

Sometimes snails with dominant and recesive alleles have lighter colour of body or shell.
But problems can occur when you have imported snails or captive bred with not known origin and they could have many things in their genes and results are not so clear. It could be laso much more complicated in snails and not always it is working only according these simple rules.

Unfortunately very few genetic factors (in all organisms) follow the simple mendelian rules (dominant & recessive) even codominant isn't as simple as people are taught, even at undergrad. then there's all sort of other non environmental influences such as influence and expression of transcription factors, chromatin state, methylation state, influence of different alleles on one another the list goes on ... and on... and on... .

I suspect that snails dont follow a simple dominant and recessive pattern for a lot of things, considering the variation in colour and colour depth seen. Also after some inbreeding Jadatzi can start to regain their stripes and even two albinos can produce a dark shelled or footed individual however it is quite rare. I'm sure i heard somewhere that snails have an excellent DNA repairase (or similar) to fix these mutations (such as albinism) which may be at work here, or the mutation may be caused by transposon like elements which have jumped back out of position, restoring the functionality of the albino gene.

It's really interesting and i really wish we could know more about it all

[Tomáš Protiva]

It seems plausible that they can somehow repair their DNA better than other organism because other way they could have big problems with inbreeding when dispersion is probably small in snails and slugs and inbreeding in the same clutch is possible even in nature. But I think they didin´t need to repair albinism because it is not problem for them. They are nocturnal and albinism (especially of foot) is not increasing danger that they will be found by predators. We can se it also on how many albino specimens are found in nature.

[loraine1984]

Oct 10, 2013 13:59:42 GMT @giesji said:

Wow.. I find this very facinating, especially what you said about the genes Poul.

But I'm a bit confused (still). I've been googleling for albino snails, and came across expressions such as "jade", "rodatzi" and "jadatzi", and if I understood it correctly, jade is pure albino (white skin, yellow shell), rodatzi is light skin and yellow shell, and jadatzi is white skin and darker shell, right?
But is it possible to breed (in total) four different types of snails, just by having mainly albino and 'normal' snails? I'm guessing its only possible to get a jade if you breed two albinos, but how does rodatzi and jadatzi happen? Is it determined by the percentage of albino genes vs. 'normal' genes, or how does it work?

I don't exactly know how the names of the colours are in the UK, but in Holland we call the total white snails (full) albino, the snails with white body and dark shell White Jade and the reversed coloured snail Rodatzi.

When you breed normal snails with albino's, you can get leucistic (albino with black eyes), normal and albino snails.
I also saw a rodatzi with a white tail, albino's with dark spots on their shell and so on.
It's a little bit surprising what kind of snails you get out of a crossbreed, but I think the schedule that Paul posted is quite right.

[lolokth]

About genetic and albino snails in natura, white one could be favored because they are considered untasty for locals, resulting in artificial selection leading to a greatter occurence of albinos genes even for wild ones. Actually albinos snails tend to be more common than for other animal species IMHO.