Posted by:
chrish
at Wed May 27 12:58:12 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by chrish ]
T and T- (T plus and T minus) stand for Tyrosinase positive and negative.
Tyrosinase is an enzyme necessary in the pathway to produce melanin from tyrosine. This enzyme is the missing ingredient in many (most) amelanistic herps. Those animals can be regarded as tyrosinase negative albinos, but we just normally call them albinos or amelanistic.
There is a rarer form of amelanism where the animal does produce the enzyme tyrosinase, but still doesn't produce normal melanin because there is something else missing from the pathway. This is referred to as tyrosinase positive albinism.
T albinos usually look different than T- (normal) albinos. It has been demonstrated in a number of herp lines.
Unfortunately, this has led to a rash of people finding an animal that doesn't look quite like "normal" albinos and labeling it T without any evidence that the animal actually produces tyrosinase or not.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas
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RE: stupid question, what is T and T- - chrish, Wed May 27 12:58:12 2009