I agree 100% on there being a good number of interesting lines of different things being completely lost over the years. Yeah, the market for yellow rat's is definitely much more limited as you said when compared to many other species out there. Still cool though to that more limited market.

Yeah, that other yellow there is very neat too. In my opinion if it was indeed a "pure" type Yellow rat and only produced YELLOW pigment and no red and/or orange from having any involvment with any Everglades lineage at all, then that one would probably be more accurately termed an extreme form of hypo-xanthism due to it only displaying a very reduced amount of pale beige/yellow, and nothing else but melanin. It would be interesting as all heck to see if your latest find was allelic with the one in the Lucas pic. It can be an extremely tough nut to crack between axanthism and anerythrism sometimes due to the fact that xanthophores are responsible for producing both yellow and red pigments. Only if there is a predisposition for displaying more red pigment are they referred to as "erythrophores" pertaining to red pigment (erythrins). The more I learn about this it seems the LESS I actually know to be quite honest. There are so many freakin variables involved..LOL!

Whatever the case, those are very cool snakes for sure!


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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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