Posted by:
DMong
at Mon May 23 21:28:55 2011 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by DMong ]
Well, the white in your snake is because it has substantial "desert" king influence. They are far more snow white than many other Cal. king variants. Just so happens that pure white albinos are seen far less than the types that display yellow. I'm sure one day that will change, but thus far most forms of albino's in the market were the other types, and not the desert phenotypes.
As for the other pinkish, purple, lavender colors, those can be caused by a wide variety of things. Many people in the hobby label things without knowing exactly what causes it, so in turn, cannot apply the proper terminology to it either. You brought up some extremely interesting questions regarding what causes some of pigment cells to display certain colors. For example, when does very extreme hypomelanism become amelanism, when would hypomelanism become more of a t-plus(tyrosinase plus), etc..
For one thing, many in this hobby don't have a single clue about what actually causes certain cells to display certain looks or colors. Additinally, some hypo and t-plus snakes can display this in a very dark manner, or can be almost totally non-existent as well, depending on the many strains that are out there, and what specific type of animal it is that is in question.
T-negative is quite easy to distinguish(total lack of melanin), but certain hypos, lavenders, and t-plus snakes in the hobby can be far more complicated to know what is responsible, and one certain type can even look VERY different from another type of snake, but still be caused by the exact same thing, or maybe just a slight variation of the exact same thing.
Anyway, some hypo and t-plus animals are impossible to distinguish which gene, or pigment cell dynamics is really responsible for a given look in certain snakes. ----- "a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing" 

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