Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Below is a link of some pics. that Kara form Nerd posted, which includes a pic. of the AWESOME Axanthic Killer Bee !!!

BUT, my question is, is it actually Axanthic??
In the hobby, the term "Axanthic" means the elimination of Xanthophores ( "A" meaning no/none & "Xanthic" meaning yellow ), which is responsable for the production of yellow pigmentation.

If you see in the pic. of the Axanthic Killer Bee, there is Yellow coloration coming in...........so, is it actually Axanthic?...........or could it be Anerythristic?

These two terms give ALMOST the same apperence in coloration, BUT have two different actions.

Just curious to know others thoughts on this????

Walter
Link

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>>If you see in the pic. of the Axanthic Killer Bee, there is Yellow coloration coming in...........so, is it actually Axanthic?...........or could it be Anerythristic?
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I only see smudgy light browns instead of an actual yellow color. I do know everyones color perceptions vary. Maybe the lighting used when taking the picture is making it seem there is yellow there ??
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PHWyvern

Hi Walter,

Absolutely Axanthic...no question about it...definately. I have seen axanthic animals produced from the top guys and there are browns and slight colors visible in some of them.

Please remember that there are all variations of color within the morphs including the Axanthics. Some hypos will amaze you and some are barely 'ghostlike' in appearance. Some albinos are dirty or fuzzy and some are crisp and vibrant. I hope this helps you a bit.

BTW Walter...don't you think whatever the axanthic killerbee technically is, that it's one of the most amazing ball pythons you have ever seen?
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Matt Lerer
'Ghi Reptiles'
ghireptiles.com

Oh for sure !!
As a matter of fact, to me, the Axanthic Killer Bee & Coral Bee are tops of ALL Ball morphs I've seen so far.

I was just thinking out loud.
In "theory" the term Axanthic means NO YELLOW and to see it developing on a snake coined Axanthic made me wonder if it was actually Anerythristic, that's all.

Walter

Just as a quick note, you are correct, axanthic means lacking yellow(not a complete elimination of yellow except in the best of specimens).

Now also, axanthic does not mean elimination of browning pigment(usually comes in with age) and this is what is probably coming in on this animal. This is just like with the pastels, some of the lines "brown" out, and some of them don't. Pastel = hyperxanthic by the way, so this is a good parallel example.

Hope this helps,
Dan

I think in time we'll find that it's not as cut & dried as we would like. "Yellow" and "Red" quite possibly can be produced by other chemicals than the pigments which they are attributed to. Even the authority on the subject B. Bechtel has stated that axanthic & anerythristic are interchangeable in most instances when referring to snakes. The little yellow around the chins you commonly see in most Anerythristic A cornsnakes is certainly not the only yellow pigment in those animals (snow corns make this obvious). Dave Barker recently put it like this "After thousands of generations of breeding cattle, it is now known that there are more than 20 separate genes, each with multiple alleles, that contribute to black pattern. There’s no reason that the same isn’t true for snakes" One thing that amazes me is the frequency that "paradox" Ball Pythons are being produced there was a time when no one would believe that there could be an amelanistic animal with normal pigment "patches"....so incomplete pigment reductions are obviously possible and I would think with the combination of co-dom genes (spider & pastel) and the strange things they seem to do to recessive genes (i.e. the spider x het pieds that Graziani produced) there could very well be what appears as yellow on snakes that isn't necessarily being produced by xanthin. just some thoughts....

Horridus

hypoxanthic? I've thought about that since seeing the first snows. They all seem to have some amount of yellow, but with great reduction. It's always good to see people thinking......even when it is out loud. Thanks for bringing this up Walter.

Brandon Osborne

Hey Brandon, what's up man?
It's been a while. Didn't see you down in Daytona this year. Did'ja make it?

Walter

Who cares!!! Call it a Zebra Ball, I want one.
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Dale....dgoins222@yahoo.com

think of it this way, take away the black [albino] and you get a yellow and white snake. if there were red, you would see it in an albino. take away the yellow, and you get black, grey and white. there are only 3 colors in a ball python, for the most part, black, white and yellow. all together, they make brown. i wish we had red to work with, like boas. good question. kurt d.

I understand what you are trying to say, BUT if you take away yellow, which the term "Axanthic" represents, then you ARE left with a snake that expresses blacks, whites and greys, NO YELLOW.

However in this case, I'm looking at an animal, that by it's coined name "Axanthic", is expressing yellow coloration.?.?

I've bred cornsnakes for MANY years now and in the case of one of the Anerythristic traits, they are pretty much black & grey, but still express some yellow coloration, however the reds & oranges are totally eliminated, hence the term Anerythristic.

The terms are defined as follows:

Amelanistic =
total elimination of dark pigment blacks/browns = melonophores

Anerythristic =
total elimination of red/orange pigments = erythophores

Axanthic =
total elimination of yellow = xanthophores

Seeing how there is no red/orange coloration in Balls like you say, but there are yellows and the snake in question coined "Axanthic" is expressing yellow coloration, the term Anerythristic would be more suffice.
That's going by "Theroy" of it's apperence of course.

Walter

sounds like you know your genetic science better than i do. in this case, maybe it is an incomplete trait. look how different the jolliff line axanthics are, compared to sk/vpi. they can be tough to tell from normals sometimes as adults, where as the sk/vpi snakes are generally much cleaner, most are still not quite perfect. a baby jolliff axanthic looks just as good as a baby sk/vpi, and muddies up as it grows. both are clearly axanthic as babies, i couldn't tell you what causes the color change. i do think corns aren't a perfect comparison, you have red to start with. i'll give you one that puzzles me. an anerythristic honduran milksnake is pretty much black, white and grey, how come ghost hondos are pink? beats me. kurt d.