Lee,
It will be interesting to see if your bluegrass albino is compatible with other albino lineage, besides the Schuett strain.
When you wrote "i thought there was only 2 types of albino? t- and t"
You are correct in that those are the two main general types, and it starts there, as tyrosinase is the first enzyme in the biochemical pathway in melanin synthesis and is thus a major "player" in albinism and amelanism. Actually it's usually referred to as T- and T+; I had a typo in my original post and didn't have the + at the end of what should have been T+, when I stated my theory "that maybe the Schuett is T- and maybe the blue grass is T+, but that they may just be a different type of albino that is incompatible, because there are many different albinos and mechanisms that cause it". The reason being is that there are many known very specific causes due to single point base mutation or multiply changes, or deletions and different places in the biochemical pathways causing changes or deletions to; amino acids that make up proteins, enzymes (many different ways on a genetic level to delete of disrupt tyrosinase's effectiveness or activity), or precursors to end product compounds that make up melanin, in both the human model and snake model and probably many ways still are unknown, and/or undiscovered. So there are many different ways to get to the same end result of albino, weather T- or T+. So, even if two gene mutations are either both T+ or both T- resulting, if those two mutations do not occur on the same gene, spot or loci and/or have the same effect at the same point in the biochemical pathway, they will not be compatible, that is to say if they are both recessive; one copy of one and one copy of the other will not equal albino phenotype, because the wild type alleles at both loci will "trump" both copies.
Also part of my theory is base on the appearance of the different albinos, in that they have a more "caramel" appearance which generally correlates to T+ where there can still be some minimal or altered amounts or aggregate types of melanin production, were as the Schuett seems to have a cleaner, paler “T- look” , which I am only basing of photos as I have not raised either, and maybe you or Scott, or others would have something to add on the appearance, but like I said it is just a guess (hair-brained theory) at this point, biochemical tests for the presence or absence of tyrosinase activity in the melanocytes could verify or disprove, and of course genome sequencing would really get to the specifics.
Sorry so long, but as you can see it really might not be as simple as 2 eastern albino types exist either T+ or T-, nor will they necessarily be compatible with one or the other, none could be compatible with any, of course it could be that simple if only two different mutations existed, but Scott Felzer has already disproven the possibilty of only 2 mutations existing by proving incompatibility of 3 different albino types in just the easterns alone already, not to mention the incompatibility of albino strains of other species and subspecies that Scott has proven thru breeding trials. If anyone is willing to give me several million dollars to work on resolving garter snake genetic specifics at a genomic level, please call me, I will get right on that in my spare time. lol

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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com
1.0 cinnamon pastel Python regius
1.1 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.3 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.3 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
2.0 66% het snow Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.2 flame Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 butter p.h. stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 carmel stripe p.h. amel Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 amelanistic p.h. carmel,stripe Pantherophis guttatus

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