Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Albinos confuse me because I love the high contrasts and I am unaware of the genetics are the same. If I bred a high contrast albino to a normal, is it possible to hatch out any high contrasts? Thanks for your patience....Manny

When you say high contrast to normal i am assuming you mean albino to albino and not albino to normal ball. Albinos are albinos, some people advertise ' high contrast ' and some just as ' albinos' - if you look at prices they are advertised the same. Sooo, if you are looking to breed albinos, I would do a lot of looking around - pref. in person, and pick the ones that look the nicest to you - because you can see differences in contrast, brightness, etc. and this is just my opinion of course

Douglas

The basic genetics are the same - You can mix the different lines of albinos and still get albinos.
High Contrast vs. Low Contrast (there's those too!) and everything inbetween is just the result of selective breeding to produce animals to either extreme. It's a lot like how dog breeders try to breed dogs with the best type together to make dogs with even better type. Boa people work this way a lot - if I remember correctly, that's how the Blood Boa morph was created, just lots of selective breeding of exceptionally red boas.
The different main lines of pastels are another example of this - Lemon vs. Graziani vs. Bell, etc. The big breeders just selected the animals they felt were the best examples of their pastels and bred those together, and after a few generations you get distinct lines.

Hope that answered your question!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

MannyRottie, you asked: "Albinos confuse me because I love the high contrasts and I am unaware of the genetics are the same. If I bred a high contrast albino to a normal, is it possible to hatch out any high contrasts? Thanks for your patience....Manny"

Your question is a bit confusing, because others have read it and think you are talking about breeding a "high contrast" albino to a "normal" albino. I read your post and think you are asking about breeding a "high contrast" albino to a normal ball python.

From a lot of your previous posts, I get the impression that you aren't understanding the genetic inheritance of a lot of the ball python morphs. If I am wrong, then I apologize. I just don't think you've ever gotten a straightforward explanation.

Albinos, whether "high contrast," "low contrast," or just plain albino are expressing a recessive trait. That means that animals expressing this trait must be homozygous for the trait of interest. It also means that animals heterozygous ("het" ) for the recessive trait of interest will look the same as a normal ball python.

Axanthic, lavender albino, clown, piebald, caramel (tyrosinase-positive) albino, and hypomelanistic (aka "ghost" ) are other well-known recessive traits.

The bottom line here is that breeding albino (high contrast or otherwise) x normal will give you offspring that are all heterozygous for albino, and look the same as a normal ball python. Breeding a "high contrast" albino x "normal" albino will give you offspring that are all albino, and I suspect a range of varying degrees of "contrast."

I hope that helps!

~Rebecca
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1.0.0 Dumeril's Boa '04
1.1.1 Ball Pythons
[1.0.0 '05 Orange Hypo (Specter)]
[0.1.0 '05 Het Orange Hypo (Sylvia)]
[0.0.1 '03 Normal (Sue)]
0.2 American Pit Bull Terriers (40lb darling lap dogs:Brandy&Mara)

Thank you for your explanations....I greatly appreciate them.