a Tyrosinase test kit.



This past spring when I came up to Cornell to see the campus I was talking to one of the herpetology professors about my hobby, there is a lot I wanted to learn, but I am an engineering student.



Anyway, I brought up the various amelanistic mutations in boas. We have Kahl and Sharp then Colombian, Argentine, Nicaraguan, and an Insular "T-Plus Albino" and now we have this Paradigm.

I read a few years ago about a DOP A test that was done in rat snakes to determine why two Albinos weren't compatible. At the time I had no idea what was meant by DOP A, and I may not be remembering the name correctly. Regardless the test showed that one of the Albinos was actually T-positive and the other negative, despite the fact that phenotypically they looked alike (similar to Sharp and Kahl, but the looked more alike).



Last year I learned that dopamine is somewhat connected to tyrosinase and melanin, so maybe that was the DOP A test. If so enzyme tests aren't too terrible to accomplish.



When I met with the professor in the spring and introduced the idea of this research he thought it would be possible and put me in contact with some other professors in molecular biology. I don't have the time right now to work on this, but I do plan on it.

I want to know why we have all these "Albinos" and what makes each one look the way it does.

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