First off, I'd like to say congratulations!

That animal can only be best described as a "paradox" albino!. it has ZERO melanin except for the eyes,...which by the way are perfectly normal colored, iris and pupil. Most paradox albino animals produced in the hobby so far have random blobs speckles, or patches of melanin on the body itself. Your animal however, had it's body unable to produce melanin, but the locus responsible for the eye pigmentation was not affected!,..very strange indeed!,...but there it is!

We understand a certain amount about genetics, but that's all,...genetics, and nature in general has her own set of rules that we will probably NEVER fully understand.

1) it's not an "extreme hypo", because there's zero melanin anywhere on the dorsum or ventral surface.

2) It's not a tyrosinase positive animal either, because it would still have the melanin pre-cursor and produce a purplish/caramel coloration where the dark pigment was supposed to be.

3) It's not a "FULLY" tyrosinase negative animal either(amelanistic), because by definition, it has to have NO melanin, and the eyes still do.

4) It can only be the strange one-of-a-kind "oddball" anomoly known as a genetic "paradox" albino, which quite literally means "one that possesses seemingly contradictory qualities".

That is indeed a very unique and special animal, and can only be best described as a "paradox" albino. Of course if this genetic trait is found to be an inheritable recessive trait, which it probably is, and hets are later produced, and they are "back-bred" to either each other, or a female sibling back to the parent and more of these are created, you will have free reign to call it whatever is fitting, and less confusing to the public.

Although it is indeed a paradox, the herp hobby already is familiar with the word, and would probably associate the word paradox with the forms that are already known to the hobby that have random dark patches here and there, etc..., so you could call it something like "Black-eyed" albino Black Ratsnake, or something like that so it wouldn't get confused with the other types in the hobby. Another reason why that might be a good "coined" name, is the fact that there are already "pink-eyed" leucistic Texas Ratsnakes in the hobby. As a matter of fact, I have a very deep blood/ruby red eyed leucistic Texas Rat, and neither the seller, nor I was aware of this until several months later when I thought I saw something strange from a certain angle one day, and sure enough,....they were deep ruby-red!

Anyway, that is an AWESOME snake!....I hope you can breed it and make more for the hobby!


best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

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