Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Picked up this guy at the Mid Atlantic Reptile show in Maryland a couple weeks back. He is an eating machine and eats what the other snakes leave over night.

My question is, what is the difference between T plus and T negative albinos, is there a common name? Can anybody post a pic of each?

thanks

T neg (aka albino, aka amelanistic)is the albino with red eyes. No pigment.

The Lavender albino is still an albino but has some melanin. Has ruby eyes.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

He's cool lookin'!
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0.1 Lampropeltis Getula Floridana
1.0 Elaphe Guttata Slowinskii

Albino (T-) Amelanistic:

Amelanism (Tyrosinase negative) is a congenital mutation that is the result of an amino acid disorder that results (in) “Hypopigmentation” of systematic (organs) and ocular (eyes) tissue.
The pigmentation in cells is dependent on the cell’s ability to manufacture and isolate melanin. Melanin is synthesized from the amino acid tyrosine by the enzyme tyrosinase. This process occurs within organelles called melanosomes which are located in cells called melanocytes. These melanocytes are responsible for the pigmentation of cells (for example skin and eyes cells)
In Albinism (T-) tyrosinase is not present, the amino acid tyrosinase can not be synthesized therefore melanin is absent. A total lack of dark pigment is the result, leaving dark areas white and red pupils.
*** i don't own any T- Florida kings currently***

Lavender Amelanistic (T positive):

In the "Lavender" (Tyrosinase positive) mutation the Tyrosinase enzyme is present but the cells are unable to isolate the synthesized melanin in the melanosomes. This results in lavender/brown pigmentation as well as ruby red pupils.

Hope that helped/ was clear...

~ZF
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Royal ReptileZ

Very clear, thank to both of you for your responces, im just trying to get all this stuff down as I am a new snake guy. I have only dealt with varanids until recently and never had to worry about all this morph stuff. Great responce, and again, greatly appreciated!