There seem to be two disticnt types of paradoxes, one is the roughly 50/50 looking animals that are almost certain to be Chimeras, the other is what you have , an animal with only a small patch of dissimilar pigmentation.



These animals always proven to be what the dominant phenotype is.



This second type of paradox is most likely whats known as a mosaic monosomy. In this proven genetic phenomeneon, some cells, receive only one copy of a given gene instead of the two that should be present. For some reason an error occurs leaving patches of tissue with a missing copy of a gene. In your case your snake received one copy of the gene for albinism from one parent , making it a het, and in certain patches it failed to recieve a second copy at all.



The result is that with only one copy of the amel gene and no normal copy to offset it in these affected areas, the animal displays albinism in those areas.



People make all sorts of mistaken assumptions about these things. One big one is that having two copies of the albino gene makes you an albino, in reality its the LACK of having a properly functioning copy of that allele that results in albinism, hence an animal with only a single copy of that gene and no second copy at all ,will have the albino phenotype.





You can also have a complete monosomy, where an animal is mising one copy of a given gene in every cell of its body. A perfect example of this is a friend of mine who bred a black pastel male to a normal female and produced a "super" which I have seen myself.



Nick

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