There really is no correlation of longevity between normal and albino (amelanistic) morphs per se, but there can always be undesirable "tandem" traits that go along with any bloodline that is line-bred for a good while (i.e. in-breeding). Some gene combinations can of course be lethal right from the begining and they don't even hatch because of whatever it is that went wrong while it was developing. It can be any bloodline or morph whatsoever. The bug-eyed leucistic Texas rats would be a good example of this. One-eyed (or no eyed) albino Burmese pythons, Stargazer sunkissed corns.

Anyway, there are TONS of things that can cause shorter life spans in snakes, but albinism itself is not an issue. It really depends on what other weak or malfunctioning traits might be in their genetic code. There are countless millions of genetic codes within any individual snake. When hobbyists constantly pair the same recessive like traits to make a certain morph, you also pair up any other bad OR good genes as well from each parent.
This is also why it is generally a good idea to introduce "new" blood every now and then to line breeding programs. However, to get a certain phenotype(outward look), a certain amount of in-breeding is inevitable and quite necessary.


~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"


serpentinespecialties.webs.com

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]