Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What are the odds of finding an albino in the wild? What are the odds of finding a het in the wild, and then proving it out? Has anyone done or seen any numbers? If so, how would this number be calculated? If there is only one known albino from the wild in a given species, would the ratio be one in all the others ever collected?

This is a quote from the website about "Blondie", an albino Carpet Python: "Estimates of the incidence of albinism in wild snakes vary from 1:10,000 to 1:30,000." However, there is no reference or other information about the quote.

Bill Cobb

Bill, Bechtel (sp?) actually has odds in his book.I have no idea how he came up with those odds?

Shannon

The quot is from "Reptile and Amphibian Variants" by Bechtel, page 57.

Credits and brownie points go to Shannon for knowing where to look.

Bill Cobb

The problem with these percentages is, they are, or were guesss at the time. It is easy to come up with a formula, but very hard to plug in real numbers to base any accurate guess on.

You really need to have a real understanding of what the actual population is, not what is found or guessed to be found by someone who would notice its an albino.

Cheers

for me it was 50/50. Take the left fork in the creek and find an albino Checkered Garter, take the right fork and let my friend find it. I took the right (wrong) fork.
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http://www.hcu-tx.org
http://www.kingsnake.com/mexicana/
http://www.joeforks.com

Dan Johnson had a very good post in the GBK forum about finding traits in wc's by his captive breeding methods. The post was sometime in the last year to 18 months if I remember correctly. Apparently by being very methodical in his breeding selection he was able to uncover a number of traits with the animals he kept.
Dan always had one of the most informative website I have ever seen regarding a reptile collection> Parents, offspring, lineage, egg lay dates, egg hatch dates, some hatchling feed info. Haven't really seen a hobbyist or professional page like it since. Every now and then someone posts a link to the page still floating out there in cyberspace.

daveb

Did you meen this page?
-Phil
Link

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Work is the curse
of the drinking class!

.

What are the odds that you would be talking about forks?

I flipped boards all day about 10 years ago and told a kid where they were...He immediately found a neonate albino s. black racer the next week.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

>>What are the odds that you would be talking about forks?
>>
>>I flipped boards all day about 10 years ago and told a kid where they were...He immediately found a neonate albino s. black racer the next week.
>>:Mark
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>>Surrender Dorothy!
>>
>>crimsonking.piczo.com/

we both got forked on that one!
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http://www.hcu-tx.org
http://www.kingsnake.com/mexicana/
http://www.joeforks.com

Haha, 4q ! The Forkinator! I made it back at 9:40 so I woulda been in SA about 10:15!

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Todd Hughes

You think that's bad, at Marfa I went south through Chinatis and Dave Long continued east and down the 118. We were to meet up on the River Rd. and by the time I got there he had found an albino suboc. Troy Hibbits also was there and found a Blair's morph and a milk. I found a Blacktail and a longnose

Yes, but was it an albino longnose? I'll take that as a no..
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Mark

another buddy of mine found an amel longnose on the River Road the same year Dave found the amel suboc. I saw him recently but forgot to check on the snake.
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Herp Conservation Unlimited
Mexicana Group Directory
Photography by Joseph E. Forks
Captive Bred Locality Matched Desert Kingsnakes

Lol, no but me and a friend did find a suboc several years later that appears to be anerythristic or axanthic but it has not proven out yet.

I also had the same great odds as you last summer/fall. Found 2 eastern milks, 1 albino and one normal. Unfortunately I am pretty sure those percentages are about to change significantly this spring! lol
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Joe

I am thinking those numbers are huey. Only because the sample is so small.

Take an albino pyro. has there been any found? Say one has. Then if you look at one mountain range, Say the santa ritas(close to me) There are most likely several million pyros or more there. But only between 100 to 200 are collected a year(at most) That percentage is very low compared to the actual amount in that one mountain range. Then if you factor all the mountian ranges??? Yes, the sample is very low.

Then if you consider the average rate of hatchling failure. Lets say 90%. Then if you factor in that albinos are not naturally suited to survive. Then that lowers what will actually be found compared to how many WERE actually hatched.

With all that said, a geneticsis(sp) fella once told me that het for albinism in snakes in nature was about 1-20. I thought that a little high, but then if you factor all the above in. It very well could be true, Or maybe 1-50 or 1-100. Any of those are pretty close compared to the actual numbers of any species, that is SEEN by humans.

Anyhow, the actual percentage is unknown, as we have very little handle on what population numbers are.

A field herpers, we keep learning that are far more then we thought. And thats with the rare(hides alot) species. Cheers

id say 1 in 10,000 is a safe guesstimate. i imagine that number would vary greatly between sp.,ssp. and nat.pop.numbers. its been prooven alot/most of the morphs are simple reccessives i would guess extremely isolated pops would have a better chance of bringing that up front, cool topic,,,,,,,,,,thomas
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

I have a few very ancient books by Raymond Ditmars, and back in those old days they use to do things like take a clutch of eggs and open one up every couple of weeks to note the embryo development and what not. He must have done that with just about every known snake in North America at the time. I was always struck with how many times he would make note of an albino in the clutch. I’m thinking it is really not so rare in nature, but the odds of them surviving to breed might be the long shot. It obviously happens often enough to pass on the trait.

OK... Here's another question. What are the odds that an albino is born from two wild caught snakes that may not be hets. Could a birth defect cause an albino to be born? Humans can give birth to an albino baby, even though there is no history of it on either side for many generation. Realisticly at some point, even in the wild there was a first albino, something had to cause it. If what ever genetically went awry to cause the first one, why couldn't it happen again?
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"The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which ones pink?"

absolutely it happens, but I have no idea what the odds are.
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http://www.hcu-tx.org
http://www.kingsnake.com/mexicana/
http://www.joeforks.com

"What are the odds that an albino is born from two wild caught snakes that may not be hets. Could a birth defect cause an albino to be born? "

Really horribly, horribly low. If we are just taling about a simple run of the mill albino like we normally see, then its a recessive trait. That means you could get an albino from the above results two ways. Either 1) one of the parents is het albino AND there is a new inactivating mutation to the gene when the non het parent is making sperm or eggs. Then you get a albino because one of the sperm/eggs has the new mutation and the little embryo got the other mutation from the het parent; or 2), Neither parents are het and there are 2 new inactivating mutations to the gene when both parents are making sperm and eggs. Normally, onle a single sperm or egg would carry the mutation out of all the sperm and eggs ever produced. So, on top of the odds that you get two new mutations in the sperm/egg of each parent you have the very low odds that that sperm and that egg carrying the mutant gene actually meet up. So the chance of that happening is almos zero.

"Humans can give birth to an albino baby, even though there is no history of it on either side for many generation."

That happens because you need two defective copies of the gene to get an albino. So, even though there is no history of an albino showing up in many generations of these people, some of them are still carrying the mutant gene. They are hets., so there is no visable effect. But should a couple of hets meet up, then albino.

Best,
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

That would not be a classic pickup line, hey baby, what's your sign, I'm het for albino! LOL!
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Todd Hughes

You simply made that up, as it suits you. What? does it physically hurt if you cannot explain something or it becomes messy?

Albinos have occurred in unexplained ways. Many have occurred simply from line breeding lite individuals in a clutch, to eachother(inbreeding), resulting in albinos.

Yes, in most cases, albinism is a simple recessive and even in line bred cases, may end up a simply recessive. But It can be accomplished thru simply breeding out melanin. That has occurred with several species over the years.

Cheers

Hey FR,

I should hope that my post reads like I dont believe in magic , nor ghosts nor some elusive genetic mumbo jumbo.

What I described is simply how mutations happen, and how they can be brought together make some morph given the question I was answering. Thats not messy at all, its pretty simple.

There is nothing that can't be explained about why there are albinos. Its pretty simple genetics. Mutation happens, snakes with mutations meet up and produce an albino.

I disagree that albinos have occurred in unexplained ways. What albinos are they? What makes them unexplained?

As for selectively breeding away melanin, I think thats a matter of semantics. I would not call them an albino. For me an albino is a lack of melanin because of a simple recessive mutation and has predictable inheritance for a simple recessive. That way when people talk about albinos they are talking about the same thing and people who buy albinos know what to expect.

I agree that line breeding can reduce the amount of melanin, but thats not what the person was asking about.
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

>> Albinos have occurred in unexplained ways. Many have occurred simply from line breeding lite individuals in a clutch, to eachother(inbreeding), resulting in albinos. ...It can be accomplished thru simply breeding out melanin. That has occurred with several species over the years.

Hi Frank. That's really interesting. What species? I'd not realized that.
Terry

Line breeding out melanin to the point of making albinos???? RW