Genetics and Development – the story continues
In 2006, Konrad acquired the original black male and all of the offspring the importer produced with the wild-caught females, which was only 3 females. Konrad also inquired about the original stock from the zoological garden but was informed that there had been a tragic accident and all of the Leopard Geckos at the zoo had perished. Konrad was now the exclusive owner of the rare black Leopard Gecko he named the Black Pearl.
Konrad was thrilled to be working with these and was eager to prove them out as a genetic morph. The thought of being able to reproduce a black Leopard Gecko and combine it into other mutations was beyond his wildest dreams, although he was very skeptical of the black quality being genetically inheritable. So skeptical in fact, that in the first breeding season he did not record which females were producing which eggs. He simply went through the motions, thinking in the back of his head that it was a long shot. Little did he know that his dream was about to became a reality.
One day, Konrad went into his incubator and saw a solid black patternless baby staring back at him. He was looking at his very first Black Pearl baby, arguably the rarest Leopard Gecko morph on the planet. Konrad could not believe what he was seeing. Throughout that breeding season he hatched a few others and had proved that the morph could be reproduced, but his next challenge was to figure out exactly how the genetics of this rare new morph were being inherited. So, going into the 2008 breeding season, he paired Black Pearl to Black Pearl and Black Pearl to normal-looking Black Pearl siblings and his results were as follows:
Black Pearl X Black Pearl = produced all Black Pearl offspring
Black Pearl X Normal-looking Black Pearl siblings = produced 50% Black Pearl and 50% Normal-looking siblings
For most, this would lead you to believe that the trait is simple recessive and rightfully so with those results. However, we are not convinced this is the case at this stage. Konrad described to us that some of this normal-looking offspring had a darker color to them. In other words, the background color had a slightly darker shade. After that discussion, our first thought was these animals were the lesser form of the Black Pearl, making the trait co-dominant. However the possibility still exists that this darker shade seen on some of them could be a simple recessive marker with this quality being more visually predominant than in others like the recessive markers seen on heterozygous Pied Ball Pythons. The long and short of it is the trait is 100% inheritable and the mutation is a proven morph. It is either co-dominant or recessive. Another interesting fact about this morph is how its color evolves from hatchling to adulthood. We have identified through the following slide show the different developmental stages of color change that the Black Pearl goes through. The offspring hatches out as a solid black patternless baby and gets lighter as it matures. As a sub-adult the animal reaches a point where it appears similar to the Snow morph but with a darker hue, then it starts getting darker and darker until it hits maturity between 10 to 12 months when it develops into an extreme hyper melanistic adult. At this point the morph has reached its final developmental stage. As an adult, this morph is breathtaking. Its dark velvety color has a shimmer and beauty to it like nothing weíve seen before. Just imagine the combination opportunities this morph offers - the sky truly is the limit.
