On a lot of sites I go to, I normally see "Possibly sterile" next to their names. Why are mosaics sterile more than other colors?

I think it has to do with the inbreeding.

Some of the lines are still close, so some of the males are sterile. (I think) The lines that aren't sterile have been bred out more than the lines that still are sterile.

Can't you just breed a mo to a normal and have a 50/50 chance of getting a mosaic, since the gene is co-dominant?

I think thats what many breeders do. I've noticed mo's being bred to white faces and leu hets. The sterile lines came from breeding mo/mo. The lines were/are too close for that.

Yes. However, before breeders knew that you only needed one mosaic, they used to breed them together, like with the leu lines. One breeder in specific(can't remember her name...) inbred them to the point of sterility.

The females from sterile lines can still produce, but any males they have are possibly sterile. At this point in time breeders are breeding the females in an attempt to "breed out" the sterility. I'm not 100% sure cause I haven't read much into it, but I do believe that after a certain # of generations(5?) the sterility is usually bred out.

Hopefully someone else will come along soon and give you more details.

Why aren't leus as sterile, then, since they HAVE to have the gene to make more leus?

(Everything I say is just my thoughts- I've been trying to learn about all this. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.)

I think the leus came from inbreeding in the first place. I think there was just a thread where they were saying the leu gene came along from close inbreeding. Not sure why they aren't sterile. But I think the breeding of leus to normals to make hets, and leus to hets, and het to het, instead of everyone breeding leu to leu, has something to do with it. It's helping the lines spread out.

I know that leus were inbred at first, since then there's the fact that you will always get leu babies, and so that was the only way to get pure leus at that point. Then they started doing hets, so then there's a 50% chance that you'll get a leu if you breed a leu to a het (I think. It might be 66% or something.)

Sometimes, but not always. Dylan is a 5th gen - and he is sterile. But others in 5th gen have reproduced. I think that by 5th gen it is 50/50 sterile - that's why they are listed as "possibly sterile" rather than "probably sterile".

But - anyone buying a male from sterile mosaic lines has to be getting it for a pet only - not a breeder. I think that's why Judie (is it Judie?) has her males from sterile lines neutered ... so that the buyers aren't hoping for a breeder, which they will re-home if he doesn't prove out.

I'm not very sure on leus- but I believe that there were leu lines that just were ... found? Maybe even wild? Don't know - but there were only 2 lines I think? So, at first those 2 lines were very inbred, but then the need for opening the lines was recognized...

Sterility is a *possible* result of close breeding, not a guaranteed consequence.

Both leus and mos have some line breeding in their background. It ended up causing some sterility issues in mos but none that we know of in leus. This doesn't mean that leus might not have other health issues that we just don't know about yet (although none are reported so far). Or, if people continue to breed closely related leus, sterility could be a result in some leu lines (there is a person who posted here not too long ago informing everyone that she is setting up a leu to leu cross).

It really all depends on how everything matches up genetically. There are many possible negative results from inbreeding or linebreeding.

I will answer this one because I have done alot of research on this. Helen Moreno was the first to get the mosaic coloring in order to reproduce that particular coloring she did alot of inbreeding. She inbred her gliders to the point that all her males were sterile. She finally went out of business and others took over her gliders and have been working on the issue of sterility by out breeding them. There has been some sucess with 4th and 5 generation males being able to produce but not always. That is why they sell them to pet homes and the farther out they are with a possible breeding contract. That is what I am doing with the purchase of Remington. He is possibly sterile so I am buying him at pet price with a breeding contract that if he produces I will pay the balance of a breeding mosaic. I am going into this knowing that he may never produce a single joey. He will be housed with my black beauty female and if they have babies wonderful if they dont they can be my love bugs for life. As far as the sterility goes some are seeing sucess others are not but out breeding seems to be the only way to combat all the inbreeding.

Leucistic is a little different situation a glider can carry the leucistic gene and not express it but with mosaic it cannot it is either a mosaic or not. Leucistic is a recessive gene where mosaic is a co-dominant gene.

Here is a great page on sterility, as well as info on a leu line with sterility issues

How much is a mosaic at a pet/no breeding/neutered home?
I know that leus can go for about $500-$1,000.

Most charge between 500 to 1000 for a possible sterile male. That also depends on the chance of them being able to breed. I think the farther the generations out the more the cost because the more likely it is that they can breed. But most charge 500 if you have them neutered so they cant breed.

I'm glad someone brought this up.

I have been reading and thinking to myself..it sounds like someone's doing inbreeding and playing with genetics to get the desired colors. But, I didn't wanna step on toes and ask if that's what's been going on.

So then I was thinking... why would someone want to pay XXX amount of money for a glider whose genetics came from inbreeding..which usually have other health issues(internal). Why purposely breed to get a specific color, when the probability of causing health issues INCLUDING sterility exists?

Has there been studies on the causes of deaths in the Mosaics or other inbreed coloring gliders and what links there are to being bred this way? I know not ALL gliders of color(or lack of, haha) are inbred.. I am just thinking out loud.

Tater Tots, breeding for a color does NOT cause health problems. INBREEDING for a color, however, DOES cause health problems.

Although some of the early breeders were less then moral in their practices and some of the first leus came about because of accidental inbreeding(mother/son, brother/sister), nowadays most breeders are breeding OUT the gliders so that they are no longer inbred.

We can't change what was done in the past, but we can change the future gliders by out-breeding.

Tater tots not all mosaics came from inbreeding. There is the one line that did. The person that did this is no longer in business and since then responsible breeders have tried to correct this problem. I agree with guerita we can't change the past but we can change the future.

thank you both for clarifying.

and I agree... we can't change the past...we can learn from it and make a better tomorrow.

That's why there are a lot of leu hets, and why you don't see many leu to leu pairs, since the lines are normally too close for peoples' comfort.

Breeding for color can increase the prevalence of health problems if the genes that control the targeted trait(phenotype) are closely linked to bad(deleterious) genes.

i.e. The genes controlling the mosaic coloring may be closely located on the chromosome to the genes for the production of a protein with a specific reproductive function in gliders. Inheritance of mosaic genes may correspond to the likeliness that the defective reproductive genes will be inherited as well. This is called linkage and linkage does not occur 100% of the time. It may happen frequently or not so often. It depends on actual physical distance between genes and patterns of chromosomal recombination during gamete formation.

When meiosis(the cellular division and production of gametes, eggs and sperm) occurs,the chromosomes recombine and the deck is "shuffled" between the genes of both of the animals parents. The sperm or egg that results in the animals baby is a haploid(one set of chromosomes)melange of genes from what would be the baby's grandparents. When fertilization occurs, the other gamete contributes it's set of genes and then a diploid(two sets of chromosomes)organism that will mature and develop is formed.

When chromosomes recombine, they generally do so very accurately but in chunks containing different genes for different functions. Genes can be arranged in a very random fashion on the chromosome which is why pigment related genes might be close to genes encoding proteins with a reproductive implication.

This is all speculation as nobody is out there sequencing glider genes, but it is quite likely that this is what might be going on.

OK big ern so how does the breeding out fit into this? Being as there has been luck with the farther out you breed these lines how does that fit in with the combination of chromosomes and the relation to sterility if that combining is random?

I understood nothing after that first sentence. ._.

I'm not sure if I completely understand your question, but I'll give it a go.

When you breed an animal out from lines that have been closely bred in the past, you are trying to get some more genetic variation in your gene pool. After a few generations of line/inbreeding you will have a gene pool in the resulting animals that generally will have a larger degree of homozygosity(same genes being inherited from both parents) than would a population of animals that were randomly breeding.

It is when you have a large degree of homozygosity in genes that code for important proteins that problems start showing up. Typically this is due to a homozygous recessive condition which may correspond to a loss of function for that gene. Genes code for proteins and the proteins that they code for can have a ton of different functions or they can be pretty simple and minimally essential proteins. Breeding out is intended to break up some of the homozygosity that can come out of line breeding while keeping genes functional and while also keeping a certain phenotype/trait(i.e. mosaic) in the gene pool.

AS far as breeding out with mosaics. From my understanding, those lines were inbred/line bred pretty tight for a few generations. Over that time, they might have accrued a larger percentage recessive(loss of function) alleles of the reproductive related gene(s) which in theory may be linked to the mosaic gene(s). Breeding out would introduce more functional copies of the gene which would decrease the incidence of sterility over generations.

The first breeder of the Mosaics which was Helen Morreno... bred Mosaic to Mosaic. breeder just liked the color.

So... the mosaic was severely "inbred" with no record keeping whatsoever. Breedings were parent with sibling and sibling to sibling and back to parent.

The Leucistic Varriation was NEVER bred in this manner. If one goes back to the orig Leus and Leu Hets... Never did any of the breeders breed the Leu to Leu. Hmmm. Take that back... Sheila did once. And within this past year... there is another breeder who is breeding Leu to Leu.

One cannot compare the linebreeding of the Leucistic/BEW.... to what was done to the Mosaic with "severe" inbreeding which resulted in sterile males. It has taken Years to try to breed this problem of sterility out of the Mosaic varriation which resulted from a Ringtailed mosaic named Tilly.

Heartland Pomeranians is the breeder doing leu to leu now.

My brain hurts after attempting to read Big Ern's posts. Makes me think again. Thank you! (not sarcastic)

I just got Dasher today and he is a possibly sterile Mosaic...but he'll be going in with a WT het(possibly) and a WFB ringtail, so no Mo's. I kinda hope he is sterile that way he never looses his baby face. (Me being selfish)

I love this website...I learn so much about my little babies. I'm actually thinking about getting out of the military and pursuing a vet degree, with a specialty in Exotics, specifically Gliders.

I just got blitzen and he is possibly sterile mosiac but i really want him to prove out for me...

Ringtails are mosaics

so if you put a mosaic with a wfb your not gonna get mosaics??? i'm confused again