">Do you think that may be these different lines are just markers for the leucistic gene?



I think it is unlikely. I might change this opinion in the following scenario -- A lesser platinum and a mojave mated and produced a leucistic. This leucistic was mated to a normal. Their babies showed a range of appearances from lesser on one end to mojave rather than being divisible into lessers and mojaves. "



I also think it is unlikely that the mojave and lesser and other visible phenotypes in this group aren't caused by the same exact gene that when no normal copy is present causes the blue eyed leucistic appearance. Lots of people have now created leucistics from crossing these lines and I've not heard of reports of people breeding say lesser to mojave and consistently not producing leucistic like you might expect if the leucistic mutation where a separate recessive mutation from lesser or mojave and a crossover could separate them. I think the black eyed leucistic and the yellow belly just happen to be two other gene locations that can also produce white snakes.



Morph King dissolved and stopped posting here about the time they where producing lots of offspring from lesser//mojave leucistic X normal so I don't have the direct report from them that I hoped but I've heard 2nd hand that they produce distinct lesser and mojave around the expected 50/50 ratio and no normals or leucistics which is all consistent with the theory that lesser and mojave are alleles and single mutant gene traits.



However, it is also true that there is some overlap in appearance between lesser and mojave. While each line has it’s own distinctive typical look there have been cases posted where the lightest colored mojaves from lines not related to lesser are nearly as light as some of the darker lesser from lines with no possibility of actually being mojave.

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