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Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 10:27 am
by Harold of the Rocks
Ok i give up concinnusman.
I know what i have is far fetched ,that's why i waited this long to post her up.
I wanted to have as many facts put together on that bug eyed freak as possible.
So cool your right its probably the only leucistic Baird's rat snake on earth, i have it and im trying to pose it as a gopher snake. sounds logical especially since a perfect gopher snake scale count is a flimsy excuse...
Not a super believable claim like someone finding a clutch of regular and albino Cal kings under a board next to their empty eggs and not taking a pic. Is it possible sure... but its a stretch.
I always suspected she was a gopher that's why i bred her to one, but ill be honest i had no idea what to expect out of the eggs she laid last summer until they hatched . So in 2 years i should hopefully have a clutch with 50/50 freaks and hets if its an inheritable trait.

I have tried the best i can to be transparent here and not be somebody hiding behind a keyboard making wild claims from a unknown location.
My name is Ben i live in Napa, i don't like wine, im a Taurus, an Independent, and i don't believe Bigfoot exists (at least not locally)
So the offer still stands. If ANYBODY is in the area and wants to have a look at this goofy bastard PM me.
Im done with this thread and stepping off my soapbox now please ... continue on with some Legitimate albino's
Happy New Year to all
Ben

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 11:03 am
by Natalie McNear
The offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids? The pattern of the white snake isn't weird at all, there are tons of striped gophers in Napa County and the surrounding areas, if that's where it was found.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 11:58 am
by Mike Waters
Natalie McNear wrote:The offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids? The pattern of the white snake isn't weird at all, there are tons of striped gophers in Napa County and the surrounding areas, if that's where it was found.
With Ben's permission I will photograph the hets in my possession and post them here. Even thought someone stated that hybrid animals can look pure :roll:

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 5:41 pm
by concinnusman
When you're talking about two very similar species, with one of them being variable anyway, yes.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 5:47 pm
by concinnusman
Harold of the Rocks wrote:Ok i give up concinnusman.
I know what i have is far fetched ,that's why i waited this long to post her up.
I wanted to have as many facts put together on that bug eyed freak as possible.
So cool your right its probably the only leucistic Baird's rat snake on earth

There's plenty of them, what are you talking about? I could buy one online right now. If you think the albino king story is hard to believe, than you really don't want to hear about the two headed king my brother found. :lol:

But anyway, I didn't mean to offend you. All I was saying is that you didn't catch this snake yourself. The only info you have about it's origin is second hand, (heresay) and with everything else being freakish, scale count alone is no proof of it's species. That's all I was saying. Again, just offering some debate, didn't mean to offend.

You have the actual snake and you do have some pretty concincing arguments. All the rest of us have is doubt and speculation and so, until proven otherwise, a lucy gopher snake it is.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 5:47 pm
by bewilderbeast
An albino? Batrachoseps attenuatus... found in my parents' backyard when I was a kid...

terrible pic, sorry.

Image

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 5:54 pm
by concinnusman
Cool. Actually looks hypomelanistic though, doesn't it? or T positive maybe? Tiny little thing!

The albino one's I found were very pink and had red eyes. That one has a little color to it.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 6:03 pm
by jdustin
he offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids?
word.

If the offspring are hybrids, I think all of them looking like standard gophers without any traits from the other parent is REALLY unlikely.
A weird white snake is found where gophers reside naturally, and produces gopher snake babies. Probably a gopher snake.

I do find fundad's keel point interesting. Mike/Ben, do the babies have completely normal keeled scales?
Do leucistic baird's rats have keeled scales???

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 6:05 pm
by Mike Waters
concinnusman wrote:When you're talking about two very similar species, with one of them being variable anyway, yes.
yeah ummm... no they will look like mutts. All 5 babies look exactly the same. I understand your disbelief and some of your argument but no if you breed two different species together they will look like a combo of the two. Maybe a babie or two will look more like mom and pappy but not all 5, that is rediculous. The only real argument you have is that he could be a big fat liar. But... he is tall and skinny so that is out of the question

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 6:08 pm
by Mike Waters
jdustin wrote:
he offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids?
word.

If the offspring are hybrids, I think all of them looking like standard gophers without any traits from the other parent is REALLY unlikely.
A weird white snake is found where gophers reside naturally, and produces gopher snake babies. Probably a gopher snake.

I do find fundad's keel point interesting. Mike/Ben, do the babies have completely normal keeled scales?
Do leucistic baird's rats have keeled scales???
yes, they look 100% ugly pure pacific gopher. Tomorrow i will take verry detailed photos and post them in a new thread, not to derail this fine thread any longer, and you can say for your self.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 6:49 pm
by Nick
I hope for his sake that concinnusman is just trolling...

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 7:01 pm
by concinnusman
Natalie McNear wrote:The offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids? The pattern of the white snake isn't weird at all, there are tons of striped gophers in Napa County and the surrounding areas, if that's where it was found.
I already asked that a long time ago. ;)
Mike Waters wrote: But... he is tall and skinny so that is out of the question
:lol:

As far as I am concerned, the arguing is over in case you didn't catch that. I'd like to see some new posts instead of beating this one to death. When people start saying insulting things, taking arguments personally when it's not about them, it's time to wrap it up.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 7:08 pm
by Mike Waters
concinnusman wrote:
Natalie McNear wrote:The offspring of the snake should have settled this quickly - are they gophersnakes or are they hybrids? The pattern of the white snake isn't weird at all, there are tons of striped gophers in Napa County and the surrounding areas, if that's where it was found.
I already asked that a long time ago. ;)
Mike Waters wrote: But... he is tall and skinny so that is out of the question
:lol:

As far as I am concerned, the arguing is over in case you didn't catch that. I'd like to see some new posts instead of beating this one to death. When people start saying insulting things, it's time to wrap it up.
:roll:

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 7:11 pm
by concinnusman
That smiley is obviously not albino. In fact, I'm not even very sure it's a smiley at all. Geez, lighten up guys.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 9:35 pm
by jdustin
I hope for his sake that concinnusman is just trolling...
Naw, just skeptical. Nothing wrong with that.
And as the dork that started this thread, I really don't mind a skeptical opinion or two being shared.
Ben shared a pic or two of the bug eyed snake with me last year, and he expressed then that he expected no one would believe it. No surprise that not everyone believed it.
Time will tell. Ben has plenty of time to prove out the gene, and the species of the critter ought to be obvious to everyone once the hets are bred back to the white female. As only 25% of the genes will come from the gopher and 75% from the white freak, it will be interesting to see what the normals from that breeding will look like.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 30th, 2010, 10:28 pm
by concinnusman
I look forward to hearing about (and seeing) the outcome. I realize these things take time. I'll be watching for it over the next few years. Please keep us posted!

I had my fair share of skeptics when I told them I had Oregon Red Spotted garters that were blue, and lacking red, orange, or yellow. Many didn't believe my laterally striped Oregon red spotted garters were purebred either, so I can understand. :thumb:

It took the word of Robert Mason, Professor of Zoology OSU backing me up, to convince everyone. I was flat out called a liar too, accused of photoshopping, crossbreeding, etc. so I know the frustration. I'll try to be more sensitive next time.

Maybe one of the universities near you would be willing to run a DNA sample? Can't refute that!

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 1:01 am
by Mitchell Mulks
Sorry guys but I simply can't help myself,,,,,BUT, there are NO leucistic Baird's. There are a ton of leucistic black rats but that morph does not yet exist in Baird's lines.

Mitch

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 9:41 am
by jdustin
Sorry guys but I simply can't help myself,,,,,BUT, there are NO leucistic Baird's. There are a ton of leucistic black rats but that morph does not yet exist in Baird's lines.

Mitch
How funny. I thought I'd read that they were out there. I wonder if someone has mistakenly labeled some other leucistic rat as a baird's. Anyways, here's a thread from a couple years ago discussing some possible leucistic bairds'.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/ ... 05719.html

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 10:41 am
by Rick Staub
I have only some what followed this discussion, but following up on Natalie's post above about striped phase gophers, I wanted to note that the stripe gene is dominant in Pacific gophers. Not sure how universal it is, but my understanding is that most striped phases in other species are recessive. My point is that if this is a striped Pacific from the region Natalie mentioned above, then some of the babies should have been stripers, if not all. Assuming it only carries one striped gene, the odds of getting no stripers in a clutch of five eggs is 1 in 32. Not impossible but fairly long odds. Further if all the babies are normally blotched, crossing them should not produce any stripers, unless of course, the original snake carried 2 new mutations, but the odds of that are much much longer.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 11:05 am
by ChrisNM
a little something for Natalie...

http://albinism.org/publications/what_is_albinism.html

I used the above website and a few other resources back in 2000 to do a report on albinism in reptiles for my English 218 (technical writing) course at NMSU.

One of the definitions I came across for the term albinism was, "the inability to properly produce the pigment melanin." Human examples would be people with full blown albinism, to people with hypopigmentation.

Leucism, unlike albinism, is the total reduction of all skin pigment, whether human or animal, and not just melanin.

Some additional reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanistic ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism (they both redirect to the same page)
Wikipedia wrote:Synonyms(lacking melanin): albinal, albinic, albinistic, albinoid, hypomelanistic, hypomelanoid, amelanistic, amelanoid
medterms.com wrote:Albino: A person with albinism. The term was first applied by the Portuguese to people in West Africa who may have had partial or complete albinism. From the Latin albus for white. See also: Albinism.
Thusly, in this case albinism would make sense to associate it with just purely the word white as humans and many other mammals contain melanin as their primary, or solitary, skin pigment. In the case of reptiles and amphibians, as you've pointed out, they have multiple skin pigments that control various colors. As accurate as amelanistic is when describing a melanin-lacking reptile or amphibian, albino is also accurate as the term is routinely defined medically as the lack or no production of the pigment melanin. Thus albino=amelanistic=albino. Since albino is synonymous with lacking the pigment melanin, it is completely correct and accurate to utilize either term. The term amelanistic, for all intentive purposes, is somewhat of a cannibalized compound word with the root being melanin, the prefix being a- (a as a prefix means to lack, without) and the suffix -ic ( is like, pertaining to).

As for T+ and T-...it can be visually diagnosed, but as you stated it is more accurately diagnosed through testing.
Medical Dictionary @ TheFreeDictionary.com wrote:albinism
Congenital anomaly due to a defect of melanin production as a result of one of several possible genetic defects. Oculocutaneous albinism type 1(OCA1) is due to a genetic defect in tyrosinase, the enzyme that metabolizes the amino acid tyrosine, which is essential for its conversion to melanin (formerly called tyrosinase-negative albinism). It is an autosomal recessive condition, which affects the skin, hair and eyes. The iris is a pale colour, the fundus and the pupil are reddish and the eye transilluminates markedly. There is poor visual acuity, photophobia, nystagmus and strabismus. Oculocutaneous type 2 (OCA2) is caused by a mutation of the OCA2 ('P') gene resulting in variable amounts of melanin synthesis. The hypopigmentation of the eyes, skin and hair varies from fair to normal (formerly called tyrosinase-positive albinism). It may be associated with the Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome in which there is albinism and easy bruising or bleeding. The other type of albinism is ocular albinism type 1 (OA1). It is inherited either as an X-linked or less commonly as an autosomal recessive trait. It affects mainly the eyes and in most instances males only and the skin colour is usually normal. Management involves full correction, possibly with tinted lenses. Surgery may be required for strabismus. See ocular fundus; inheritance; trans-illumination.
Albinism.org wrote:While most people with albinism have very light skin and hair, not all do. Oculocutaneous (pronounced ock-you-low-kew-TAIN-ee-us) albinism (OCA) involves the eyes, hair and skin. Ocular albinism (OA), which is much less common, involves primarily the eyes, while skin and hair may appear similar or slightly lighter than that of other family members.

Over the years, researchers have used various systems for classifying oculocutaneous albinism. In general, these systems contrasted types of albinism having almost no pigmentation with types having slight pigmentation. In less pigmented types of albinism, hair and skin are cream-colored and vision is often in the range of 20/200. In types with slight pigmentation, hair appears more yellow or red-tinged and vision may be better. Early descriptions of albinism called these main categories of albinism “complete” and “incomplete” albinism. Later researchers used a test that involved plucking a hair root and seeing if it would make pigment in a test tube. This test separated “ty-neg” (no pigment) from “ty-pos” (some pigment). Further research showed that this test was inconsistent and added little information to the clinical exam.

Recent research has used analysis of DNA, the chemical that encodes genetic information, to arrive at a more precise classification system for albinism. Four forms of OCA are now recognized – OCA1, OCA2, OCA3 and OCA4; some are further divided into subtypes.

•Oculocutaneous albinism type 1 (OCA1 or tyrosinase-related albinism) results from a genetic defect in an enzyme called tyrosinase (hence ‘ty’ above). This enzyme helps the body to change the amino acid tyrosine into pigment. (An amino acid is a “building block” of protein.) There are two subtypes of OCA1. In OCA1A, the enzyme is inactive and no melanin is produced, leading to white hair and very light skin. In OCA1B, the enzyme is minimally active and a small amount of melanin is produced, leading to hair that may darken to blond, yellow/orange or even light brown, as well as slightly more pigment in the skin.
•Oculocutaneous albinism type 2 (OCA2 or P gene albinism) results from a genetic defect in the P protein that helps the tyrosinase enzyme to function. Individuals with OCA2 make a minimal amount of melanin pigment and can have hair color ranging from very light blond to brown.
•Oculocutaneous albinism type 3 (OCA3) is rarely described and results from a genetic defect in TYRP1, a protein related to tyrosinase. Individuals with OCA3 can have substantial pigment.
•Oculocutaneous albinism type 4 (OCA4) results from a genetic defect in the SLC45A2 protein that helps the tyrosinase enzyme to function. Individuals with OCA4 make a minimal amount of melanin pigment similar to persons with OCA2.
Researchers have also identified several other genes that result in albinism with other features. One group of these includes at least eight genes leading to Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome (HPS). In addition to albinism, HPS is associated with bleeding problems and bruising. Some forms are also associated with lung and bowel disease. HPS is a less common form of albinism but should be suspected if a person with albinism shows unusual bruising or bleeding.
Lastly, albinos aren't always white (re: albus). In many instances of albino mammals, particularly dark skinned and haired species, they can actually have a yellowish cast to their hair and skin color; would they then be Xanthic instead of albino? Albino, amelanistic, tomaeto, tomaato, eether, iither....it's all semantics

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 11:17 am
by ChrisNM
Rick Staub wrote:I have only some what followed this discussion, but following up on Natalie's post above about striped phase gophers, I wanted to note that the stripe gene is dominant in Pacific gophers. Not sure how universal it is, but my understanding is that most striped phases in other species are recessive. My point is that if this is a striped Pacific from the region Natalie mentioned above, then some of the babies should have been stripers, if not all. Assuming it only carries one striped gene, the odds of getting no stripers in a clutch of five eggs is 1 in 32. Not impossible but fairly long odds. Further if all the babies are normally blotched, crossing them should not produce any stripers, unless of course, the original snake carried 2 new mutations, but the odds of that are much much longer.
Rick, going off your odds (and not arguing, but adding to the convo)

In 2001 I received a pair of "het" for rainwater albino leopard geckos. They were purchased from a separate gentleman and upon payment the hets would be mailed from Tim Rainwater. Apparently many did this and were supposedly ripped off; I thought I was going to be one of them!

In 2001 I also purchased a male "full" albino Rainwater from Kevin Hanley. In 2002 I sold my male het and I paired the albino male with my female "het". The pairing resulted in 16 eggs. Based upon the Punnett Square, a homozygous recessive crossed to a heterozygote should result in 50:50 normal:albino. My statistics were whacked to say the least. My thought of being ripped off was releaved when the 16th egg produced an albino hatching, all other 15 siblings were normals (hets). Now, satistically speaking, had I produced 100 or 1000 eggs from that pairing I'd probably have seen a more normal 50:50 ratio. Either way it proved to me have cool genetics was/is even at just a single gene, recessive mutation level.

Interestingly, and mostly unrelated, achondroplasia is a dominant genetic disorder yet most of the global human population is fully recessive.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 12:46 pm
by Rick Staub
Chris, I heard of some long odds for some who purchased het for albino ball pythons also. Plenty who got ripped off and a few who thought they got ripped off until that last egg pipped. Another factor that may play into this is whether the mutation may lower the fitness of the sperm. if so, the chances of fetilization from sperm carrying the albinism gene is greatly reduced. BTW the odds of you getting 15 leopard gecko normals in a row are 1 in 32768. yikes!

As for achondroplasia, the population is not recessive, the gene just has a fairly high rate of spontaneously mutating during spermatogenesis. This leads to the dwarfism from parents that do not otherwise show the phenotype. I agree that genetics is very cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achondroplasia

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 12:48 pm
by Natalie McNear
OK, I concede the fact that amelanistic reptiles can be properly termed "albino" based on the above definitions and because I still can't locate that PDF I was looking for. The T+ and T- negative thing is what I was thinking, though - the condition commonly results in less efficient production of melanin (not a complete loss of it), and therefore the "T+ albinos" with dark coloration are actually hypomelanistic, not albino. T+ albinism that results in a complete loss of pigmentation is visually indistinguishable from T- albinism, as in the case of some Blind Cave Fish, and therefore captive breeders shouldn't be so gung-ho about flinging the term "T+ albino" around unless they've had the specimens analyzed in a lab. The visually-distinctive hypomelanistic animals are all intrinsically T+ (the default state, with tyrosinase levels ranging from minimal to normal depending on what's causing the condition) and should just be called hypomelanistic, not T+ albino.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 2:00 pm
by Correcamino
I threw the whole Punnett Square thing out the window, lol.
Here's my old pair of molossus (approx 35 year old male, 22 year old female)..
Image

a breeding of their het offspring produced two albino (amel) and three normal coloreds in 2008...(mom and one of the amel babies)..
Image

in 2010 the same pairing produce this...
Image
six normal babies, no albinos. So....in 2012 I am expecting six albino babies! ;)

CC

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 2:37 pm
by concinnusman
Mitchell Mulks wrote:Sorry guys but I simply can't help myself,,,,,BUT, there are NO leucistic Baird's. There are a ton of leucistic black rats but that morph does not yet exist in Baird's lines.

Mitch
You are correct. I was mistaken. The site was selling leucistic texas rat snakes (very reasonably priced too) and several varieties of Bairds. I've been known to be in error once or twice before in my life. :lol:

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: December 31st, 2010, 2:53 pm
by concinnusman
ChrisNM wrote:
Rick Staub wrote: Interestingly, and mostly unrelated, achondroplasia is a dominant genetic disorder yet most of the global human population is fully recessive.
No. It's autosomal dominant. That means you only need to get the abnormal gene from one parent in order for you to inherit the disease but it doesn't mean that just because one parent has the gene, that there is a 100% chance that their offspring will inherit the disease. Even if both parents have it, there's still a 25% chance of having normal offspring. I fail to see your point when you say "yet most of the global human population is fully recessive". So what? What's your point? I know of a population of snakes that have a dominant anery gene among them. Still, only a small percentage of those snakes in that population are anery. Not all of them carry the gene, just like most people on the planet don't carry the gene for achondroplasia. We are not all decended from an "adam and eve" with the disease. :roll: Even if we were, not everyone would have the disease. Dwarf couples have normal children quite often.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 8th, 2011, 7:18 pm
by jdustin
Not sure if this alligator is a genetic freak or not, but it's been in the news lately.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 ... 06006.html
Image

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 8th, 2011, 7:34 pm
by Natalie McNear
Looks like it just swam through some nasty muddy/polluted water to me. The top of the head and nose are not affected (because they would be poking out of the water), and neither is a good portion of the tail and to a milder extent the feet, which would have been scraping against objects as the animal swam.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 8th, 2011, 11:08 pm
by Ross Padilla
jdustin wrote:Not sure if this alligator is a genetic freak or not, but it's been in the news lately.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 ... 06006.html
Image
Looks like the same thing happened to this snake.
Image

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 9th, 2011, 9:47 am
by bobassetto
OK......and DEN?????........ :lol:

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 27th, 2011, 2:45 pm
by jdustin
chad ks posted this awesome piebald milksnake on the "Everyone post your milksnakes!" thread. Wicked sick!
http://fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=307
Image

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 27th, 2011, 2:52 pm
by Natalie McNear
Awesome... I wonder if it hatched that way or if it's the result of an old injury. I've seen wounds heal on some sand boas and be replaced by a few unpigmented scales, but that milksnake has a lot.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 27th, 2011, 4:01 pm
by jdustin
That's what I thought too, so I asked him if it had scarring and he replied with this:
No scar tissue on that snake! It was all piebald all the way.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: January 29th, 2011, 11:19 am
by concinnusman
jdustin wrote:Not sure if this alligator is a genetic freak or not, but it's been in the news lately.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 ... 06006.html
Image
Several of these have been found over the years. In just about every case, the gator had been living in a rusty culvert. It's definitely just rust.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 2nd, 2011, 4:39 pm
by Lindsay
Florida Ophisaurus
Image

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 10:27 am
by concinnusman
Interesting.^^^ Black eyes.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 10:41 am
by Chris Smith
Lindsay wrote:Florida Ophisaurus
Image

That is awesome!
-Chris

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 3:42 pm
by herpseeker1978
I didn't find this but this was posted elsewhere:
http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/viewt ... 47#p201766

Josh

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 5:27 pm
by rtdunham
[quote="Jake Seals"]Here is an amelanistic spotted sal from this spring.

that would appear to be a "snow"--amel AND anerythristic? if it were just amel, the black pigment would be lacking but the yellow spots would remain (at least that's the way it would work with snake pigmentation--maybe there's something different about sallies)

EDIT: Terry Vanderventer says "Wild-caught leucistics never (presumably) show this trait because they represent a single, one time, spontaneous mutation." Under normal circumstances, I'd say it is more likely an albino (of any species) found in the wild is more likely the offspring of two het/amels, than it is a spontaneous mutation (which is an alteration of two genes). Thoughts?

EDIT: Natalie, and others, re: whether amels are albinos & vice versa. I'd argue the term albino was first used to describe mammals, which have only melanin pigment, before science had the tools to understand pigmentation in reptiles and amphibians. So "albinos" was describing animals that were both lacking melanin and lacking all pigment (because of the nature of mammals). We know more now than we knew then, and i think it's wrong to use old nomenclature. I"d argue albino should be used for mammals, and the more specific (and thus more accurate and more descriptive) terms used for reptiles: amel, and the like. Only if a reptile lacked ALL pigment should it be called albino. Having said that: Yes, I'm guilty as charged. When I was amel getula and hondurensis and nelsoni and pyromelana, I incorporated my business as "albino tricolors inc" and I've misued the term "albino" many times since. We're talking here about how the terms should be used, and i say: not as i've used that one in the past.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 5:34 pm
by rtdunham
Jeff Lemm wrote:Those are just normal color variations of Chios. Last night I saw a black and white one and a yellow and black one. I see 6 or 7 different color varieties in Borrego alone.
Jeff, it seems to me that even if they are "normal" (ie, common) color variations, an anerythristic is still an anerythristic, and some of the other varieties you regularly see might incorporate pigment changes warranting other designations too. We sometimes think morphs need to be rare; in fact, there are a number of different kinds of animals that exist in different "color phases" that are actually melanistics, or anerythristics, etc. Animals can be both a morph and a commonly occurring color variety. IMHO.

EDIT: But concinnusman subsequently posted that all those "black and white" specimens have some red or brown pigment. That being the case, i guess i'd agree with his assessment that they're polygenic. It's not an animal a lot of people will be able to explicate on further based on captive breedings!

EDIT: May i suggest that aberrant coral snake isn't a piebald, but rather a pattern deviation? That shows up a lot in ringed L triangulum ssp, where occasional specimens have one or more of the rings "slanting" lengthwise instead of crossing perpendicular to the snake's length axis. Some of them are extreme, certainly as much so as the coral, and with line breeding some produce some striped offspring as the pattern-shifting is exaggerated. But those pattern morphs almost never are simple recessives.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 23rd, 2011, 6:17 pm
by Porter
Nice pics everyone! I especially like the pics of the Ring-necked snakes. Gator is awesome too... I saw that one a while back.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 25th, 2011, 1:13 pm
by concinnusman
herpseeker1978 wrote:I didn't find this but this was posted elsewhere:
http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/viewt ... 47#p201766

Josh
I'm sure they'll all die. The sun alone is a major hazard for them. They were probably born to a couple of hets. I highly doubt the albino form would survive to reproduce. They could have at least had a zoo raise a few of them up. That's an opportunity not likely to come again.

@rtdunham: certainly morphs such as anerythristic can be polygenic. In fact, that's exactly what's going on with the blue phase anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis concinus' I've been finding. They are truly anerythristic but it's not a single point recessive mutation, but rather polymorphism with variable inheritance so it is in effect, a codiminant trait.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 25th, 2011, 1:35 pm
by Jeff Lemm
the black and white Chios I find have no red or orange whatsoever. I think the species is just polymorphic. Going by your definition, would you call kingsnakes anerythristic?

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 25th, 2011, 2:20 pm
by Daryl Eby
concinnusman wrote:I'm sure they'll all die. The sun alone is a major hazard for them. They were probably born to a couple of hets. I highly doubt the albino form would survive to reproduce. They could have at least had a zoo raise a few of them up. That's an opportunity not likely to come again.
He addressed that in his blog. It was his opinion that they would not have survived captivity either. He indicated that very few facilities would have been able to care for them and that none were in the area. He also doubted that he or his facility could have adequately cared for them while trying to arrange transportation. Maybe the potential PR and public outreach opportunities would have warranted the risk and the effort, but past is past. Cool find regardless.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 25th, 2011, 4:36 pm
by jdustin
Going by your definition, would you call kingsnakes anerythristic?
Maybe some of them. :)
Image
(Note: photo from out on the interwebs, I believe it belongs to Jerry Kruse)

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 25th, 2011, 7:08 pm
by Porter
jdustin wrote:Maybe some of them. :)

Do you know what county that Zonanta is from?

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 26th, 2011, 9:50 am
by concinnusman
getula impostor! Very cool.

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 26th, 2011, 11:00 pm
by jdustin
You'll have to ask Jerry Kruse. I know nothing of the snake other than it is SWEEET. :)

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 27th, 2011, 11:10 am
by concinnusman
Now wait a minute, if that snake was really anerythristic wouldn't the red bands still be there? Wouldn't there be bands without pigment?

Re: Wild caught albinos???

Posted: March 27th, 2011, 12:27 pm
by Mitchell Mulks
Actually, they do start out as tricolors. However, the red pigmentation is replaced with a lavender/grey at birth. As they mature, females almost always become completely bicolor while males tend to hold onto part of the lavender/grey banding. The locale of this population is, well, HIGHLY secretive. Last year Mr. Kruse was asking me if I'd tell him, but because it's a dear friend of mine that collected the founding stock, I have promised him never to divulge even the county. So...they're from the Sierra Nevada! Haha. Below I've included pics of hatchling males and females and then I've finished with my adult pair that has already bred multiple times this year (you can see which one is the male because he still has a lot of the pigment which should be red). The trait appears to be a simple recessive, so I should produce fourteen black-and-whites this year, as she currently has fourteen follicles in her (last year she had thirteen!!!!).

Juvenile male
Image

Juvenile female
Image

2011 pairing
Image

Mitch