Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a male lavander texas ratsnake. (Mark Bell Stock)

Anyone know the genetics on this animal. Is it a simple rec trait like a lucy?

Thanks,

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

I'm not sure about the genetics on those guys Frank but I love the colors on that one. Randy W.

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

>>Anyone know the genetics on this animal. Is it a simple rec trait like a lucy?

Yep, Bechtel wrote about this mutation in his 1981 article in the Journal of Heredity. There is a photo plate of this mutant as well. I don't have the paper in front of me, but IIRC someone in Texas had bred a wild caught 'albino' Texas rat to a normal and produced hets. Bechtel received a description of this albino over the phone and then was sent a pair of hets to work with. Once they were big enough and he bred them, his notes mention that he was surprised to get normals and 'hypos' from his het albino adults. Good stuff, if you don't have the article you should track it down.

Later,
dg

I will track down the article and cheack it out, I plan on breeding him to my leucistic texas ratsnake and was assuming I would get double hets to tinker with. Thanks for the info.
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

>>I will track down the article and cheack it out

If you can't find it let me know, I have a copy of the article in storage.

dg

Dwight I am having trouble finding the "entire article" and what someone helped me find has breedings with Black rat snakes and Texas Rats and I am now confused if this is a intergrade, but I havent seen this gene in black rats before and can only find Mark Bell working with them (and the peeps who got them from him) There is also an albino form that almost exactly resembles the one called "lavander", I can't realy tell them apart from photos and have never seen the "albino" one in person as of yet, but I did see a photo from Mark Lucas who purchased them from Mark Bell. Needless to say, I am slightly confused!! LOL
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

>>Dwight I am having trouble finding the "entire article" and what someone helped me find has breedings with Black rat snakes and Texas Rats and I am now confused if this is a intergrade

Bechtel definitely bred the leucistic TX rat into black rats circa 1981 or so, but I haven't seen any mention of breeding the texas rat lavender/hypo mutation that you posted a picture of into black rats. But that's not to say it hasn't been done. My guess would be that it is allelic with the black rat mutation that looks similar.

>> but I havent seen this gene in black rats before and can only find Mark Bell working with them (and the peeps who got them from him) There is also an albino form that almost exactly resembles the one called "lavander", I can't realy tell them apart from photos and have never seen the "albino" one in person as of yet

Remember there are three different mutants in black rats that can occur in the tyrosinase positive line. There are tyrosinase positive albinos, the xanthic "hypopigmented" animals, and a third mutant that is described by Bechtel as being intermediate between the two. To further add to the confusion, remember that tyrosinase positive albinos are indistinguishable from tyrosinase negative albinos visually and since the two types were crossed bred in the mid 70's some are heterozygous for the other. Having fun yet? LOL. Read as many of Bechtel's articles as you can, its all very good info.

dg

Thanks for all the time you took to respond and the info. Now I am kind of excited to grow him up, I have 3.4 leucistic TX rat snakes and will definitely mate him with one of those females (they are all around the same age and will mature at the same time) for all I know maybe he's het for leucistic, I bet he probably is het for the other type of "albino". Regardless he is very different looking from other mutants I have seen and he gets more colorful with every shed. He is loaded with that orange I have seen many times in Texas rats. Also I have to get a pic of a snake I gave to a friend. I took a blotchless female everglades I purchased from you (pictured below) and bred it to a het albino everglades/black rat/yellow rat, then bred
the babies to each other and got like 5 different anomalies in the same clutch including one super orange 3 striped (like a yellow/everglades adult) no blotches. Also 3 different shades of albino, I don't think they where different strains, I was under the impression due to the extreme dif in coloration of these snakes it made the albino form look different or perhaps it was more than one strain and hypos involved, to bad I sold all those snakes and only know where one is at lol, I have bred and sold a lot of rat snakes in the last 20 years as you have as well lol. I never however manage to not own at least a pair of some type of rat snake LOL

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

Black/Everglades/Yellow intergrade, I have to say the babies they made where even more orange...then when bred together even more orange lol and blochless as well.

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

they babies wheren't all blotchless, some where blotched, there was albinos (all blotched but different colors i.e. white,yellow, red/orange and mixed but yet albino and the female doubled without re mating and laid 4 eggs all hatched albino). Was lotsa fun to say the least. I am not a "colubrid guy" or a "boid guy" I have or have kept just about everything, I even keep black racers. I keep 8 different kinds of pythons, 6 different kinds of boas, 7 different kinds colubrids, 2 different kinds of chelonians, 3 different kinds anurans, and emperor scorpions ( I bred them in 2000 and 2001 AND still have some babies). I usually have lizards as well, but sold them, I was breeding Fire Skinks for awhile and then sold them all to an interested party. Everything I currently have you couldn't pry out of my dead hands, some of my pythons and boas are over 12 years old and I have had them the entire time and am somewhat attached lol. I have also kept various salamanders and once a speckled caiman. I LOVE EM ALL lol
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

Yep, just a simple recessive trait, no codominance in this one. Nice specimen! I can also see some orange kicking in dorsolateraly, so it will probably get even better with age.

I think 'hypomelanistic' would be more appropiate than 'lavender'. In Black Ratsnakes there's a 'lavender' mutant which seems to be allelic with a 'hypomelanistic' recessive trait, not unlike your 'lavender' Texas Ratsnake. So if you're looking for an interesting and exiting little science project, than now you know what to do...

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

If you look here you can find that artical.

jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/76/1/7

Paul.
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www.uk-hybrids.com

Thanks I did just that.
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

If you look here you can find that artical.

jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/76/1/7

Paul.

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www.uk-hybrids.com

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research