Bearded Dragon Blog: Bearded Dragon Genetics

Here I will be discussing some popular bearded dragon morphs, such as hypos and translucents, and how bearded dragons actually develop these morphs. This post will be using a lot of genetics and genetics terminology, so if you don't feel you know enough about genetics or just want to refresh your knowledge, read: A Beginners Guide to Genetics in General

Color Terms

There are different terms used to describe the color, or lack thereof, in bearded dragons. These terms will later help you to understand some of the "morphs".

First, let's remember our Latin stems. 'A' or 'An' means without/no. 'Hypo' means less. 'Hyper' means more.

Melanin - Black

Amelanistic - No black pigment

Hypomelanistic - Less than normal black pigment

Xanthinin - Yellow

Axanthic - No yellow pigment

Hypoxanthic - Less than normal yellow pigment

Erythrinin - Red

Anerythristic - No red pigment

Hypoerythristic - Less than normal red pigment
Hypererythristic - More than normal red pigment

Popular Morphs

Here are some popular morphs that are commonly shown in bearded dragons. These beardies are usually more expensive than regular beardies, mostly because morphs are simply a pretty phenotype resulting from a homozygous recessive gene, meaning that the presence of one the more common dominant gene will result in no morph; just a normal beardie with the potential to produce the morph dragons. This will all be explained for each specific morph.

Please note that the alleles/genotypes used are only hypothetically ones simply used to give an example genotype. They are not the actual genotypes used by scientists and such.

Hypo: hypomelanism; less than normal melanin/black pigment in the eyes, nails, and skin. True hypos have all clear nails.
M= black pigment, m= hypo; A true hypomelanistic has the genotype ‘mm’

Trans: translucent; a somewhat translucent appearance to the skin. They are lacking in white pigment, some of which reflect light off the scales, and the lack of these is what causes the translucent appearance. True trans have all black eyes.

W= white pigment, w= trans; A true translucent has the genotype ‘ww’

Hypo Trans: displaying both the hypomelanism trait and translucent trait. These dragons lack both black and white pigments.

A true hypotranslucent will have the genotypes ‘mm’ and ‘ww’

Het Hypo: having a heterozygous genotype for the hypomelanistic gene. This mean the recessive hypo gene is carried in the dragon, but having only one of the recessive alleles instead of two, the dragon doesn’t show outward signs of being a hypo. This is also called being a “carrier” of the hypo gene.

Heterozygous Hypomelanistics have the genotype ‘Mm’

Het Trans: having a heterozygous genotype for the translucent gene. This mean the recessive trans gene is carried in the dragon, but having only one of the recessive alleles instead of two, the dragon doesn’t show outward signs of being a translucent. This is also called being a “carrier” of the trans gene.

Heterozygous Translucents have the genotype ‘Ww’

Double Het: where a dragon is heterozygous, or a carrier, for both the hypo gene and the trans gene. Like both the Het Hypo and Het Trans, this dragon shows no outward appearance of these two traits.

Double Heterozygous have the genotypes ‘Mm’ and ‘Ww’

There is also Hypo Het Trans, where the dragon shows the hypomelanistic gene but only carries that translucent gene (genotypes ‘mm’ and ‘Ww’), and Trans Het Hypo, where the dragon shows the translucent gene but only carries the hypomelanistic gene (genotypes ‘Mm’ and “ww’).

The morphs leatherbacks, silkbacks, and possibly leusistic/snow bearded dragons will be discussed in my post Bearded Dragon Genetics Continued.