Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We get a lot of emails from people wandering onto the website and asking about these animals, more specifically the genetics of the female, and the results of their offspring...

What We Know:

The mother, "Gweneviere," is so distinct from all other adult lavenders we have seen, that many thought she might be a "Paragon," or some other completely different morph, and that all the babies from her paired with a lavender male would come out looking like normals...

Some thought that the sire "Excalibur," might not even be compatible with other lines of lavender albino, because of how exceptionally dark purple he was as a 700 gram specimen compared to other similar sized lavs in circulation as of early '07...

Last month, we hatched two regular lavender albinos from a 100% het VPI female bred to "Excalibur," proving his lavender genetics compatible with VPI, which in turn proves him compatible with NERD, RDR, the other VPI line, and any other line that has already proven compatible with these? Has anyone crossed either BHB line with any of the others?

Since all 6 of the babies between Gweneviere and Excalibur look nearly identical to the two lavenders hatched from the 100% Het Lavender VPI line female, it proves that both the "Gweneviere Line" and "Excalibur Line" are compatible with all the known lines of lavender out there, but none of her lavender babies look anything like her! All 6 look just like the 2 normal lavenders in the other clutch?

Now the questions are:

-Is she just a one-of-a-kind lavender, that throws baby lavs that look like normal lavenders without her faded, hypo-emerald coloration?
-Is she a double morph?
-If she is a double morph, what kind of morph is it? Codom or SR? What gene combined with the lavender gene wold make a snake that looks like her?

Excalibur & Gweneviere Breeding

She certainly could be some sort of combo with a 2nd recessive gene. Sort of like a lavender snow.

She could also be a different mutation of the same gene as the regular lavenders so compatible. In this scenario the babies are GweneviereLavender combos and maybe lavender dominates to make them look like pure lavender but the next generation might produce 1 in 4 Gweneviere. This would be sort of like breeding a super lesser to a super Mojave. The lessermojave combo babies might look more like the super lesser but breeding those together you could produce 1 in 4 chances at super Mojave the next generation.

But do we know what a 30 year old lavender looks like yet? How big was Gweneviere when imported?

Although she doesn't act or appear to be as scarred up, gnarly, old and beat up as some of our other LTC adult females, she was imported in '03 gravid so her age is anybody's guess

How old are the oldest regular albinos? Gotta be some old original homozygous imports from the '90's over 20+ years old? Anyone notice a fading of their yellows over time?

We have a gnarly old LTC female that I bought from a guy who had her for 17 years before I got her, and he said she was just as scarred and beat up looking they day he got her as the day i got her from him...the same size as well...she could be 30+ years old...she is probably our oldest snake, but her normal coloration doesnt seem any different from out 3-5 year old CB adults so who knows? Maybe the coloration of normals isn't that affected by age?

It appears to me that 95% of the color change of a morph happens the first 2-4 years, and after that seems to be negligible...but I guess I'll just have to keep a CB lav, bumblebee, coral glow etc., around for 30+ years before I will know for sure the full extent of morph color change over extreme time

LavenderAlbino.com

What happened to her babies from when she was gravid when you first got her?
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don't marry the cow when the milk is free when the milk drys up it's time for a new cow

6 Normals babies hatched...none were visible morphs...we do not own any of them...i do not know what is going on with them...

Here is a pic of "Lancelot" another regular lavender completely unrelated to Excalibur and Gweneviere pictured next to a regular albino...you can begin to see how distinct Gweneviere is...

Here is a TERRIBLE quality pic of Gweneviere next to a pied, lav, and regular albino....

Her abnormal colors go a step beyond just muted yellows....her overall coloration has a sort of hypo-emerald caste about it...

...and yet all 6 of her babies when paird with "Excalibur" came out with the typical bright neon-orange of all baby lavs...

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if merely you took a regular lavender and turned down the intensity of the orange-neon-yellows....you still wouldn't have a "Gweneviere." She seems to have a little something else going on??? A sort of toning so to speak...am I just trying to hard here? lol!

LavenderAlbino.com

As Randy says, she is possibly the product of recessive genes, and if so, will be passing on the recessive gene to her offspring. Personally, I would retain one or more of her Lav Alby sons and mate them back to her in a year or so to prove whether she is or is not a recessive mutation.

Congrats on the 2 female lav 50% het clowns!!

Tracy,
Grant Sr. here.
Good to hear from you and thanks for the props on the 2 female lavender possible het clown hatchlings. They are really nice and huge - taking after their mom who is about 3000 grams now.
That clown line of yours throws some monster size snakes. While I can't help but be excited for the two girls, I was soooooooo... hoping for one or two visible males to use on some DH lav/clown females next year. I guess this time around I will try breeding her to the DH male and keep my fingers crossed that our luck will be better playing the 1 in 16 lottery!
Congrats to you too, I see you produced a couple lav female hatchlings too!
See you in a couple weeks!
Grant

Those genes are good-some of the baby clowns have been 95 g at hatching-combined with those strong lavender genes, the babies should be great. I got the opposite last year-but just one clown 50% het lavender-it is a male though! You have had amazing success with your animals, which you are to be congratulated!

Look forward to seeing everyone at the expo-can't wait to see all of the fabulous ball pythons this year!

...and not to rain on anyone's parade - but it is possible that she is not genetically different from your other Lavender Albinos.

Since we cannot know her entire history we will never know if she was always this color.

As a hatchling she may have looked just like any other Lavender Albino. We've all seen pics of balls that have lost a significant portion of their pigmentation after only one or two shed cycles. At this time no one seems to know what triggers this change and many people have remarked that these animals will eventually gain their color back.

However, we don't know that this is always the case and even if the color comes back to what extent.

If she is not genetic - isn't it possible that she may have "lost" her pigmentation much like some of the other snakes we've seen? Maybe, for whatever reason, she is unable to regain the pigmentation (which could be a result of her Lavender Albino genotype)???

Personally, she looks like a Hypo Lavender (I'm not sure if one has been produced in captivity yet, but if I had to guess as to what one would look like I'd describe Gweneviere).

Gorgeous animal regardless!

I would guess she was a hypo lav to, but i'm not sure that she sheds clear...i never thought to check that before! in ghosts there tends to be faded bleeding between the yellows and darks...and there appears to be very little if any bleeding in Gwenevier...still very sharp and contrasty without the blended ghost look, so i would guess something more along the lines of axanthic, burgundy, or some other lighter colored morph that mutes yellow, but maintains dark pigments? but maybe she is a regular ghost with the hypo coloration minus the bleeding like you see in some "high contrast" ghosts?

we originally thought she was just a really cool lav with faded yellows, and an emerald caste initially....there was so few adults around even a couple years ago to compare her to...but now that more have been raised up, and no one has anything that looks anything like her, it seems more and more that she must be a double morph....she is definitely a one-of-a-kind animal that happens to throw normal looking lavs!

...the fact that her babies are not faded at all...and as high contrast as they come...with the typical glowing bright neon orange of hatchling lavs...it is getting harder and harder not to believe that she may be a double morph...

if she is a double homozygous morph...that would mean that all the offspring of her homozygous sons bred to normals would be 100% Het lav and 50% het "Gwenevier Morph."

There were several females in the clutch...we may have a lav codom out of Gweneviere to put on them by the time they are ready to breed...imagine a brand new baby or CB adult "Gwenevier Spider or Pin!"

LavenderAlbino.com

that pic with the black background makes her look like a snow. Have you guys tried breeding her to an Axanthic? If you guys get baby axanthics on that clutch you'll know for sure, plus any visual axanthics will be 100% het for LA.

I'm looking forward in getting that pair from you guys, can't wait to get my LA projects on the ground. Just a couple of more weeks

Pitoon

i doubt well throw an axanthic in with her, but you make a good point... maybe we'll breed her sons to het axanthic females from known lines out there? at the very least they would be 100% het lavs 50% het axanthic

still waiting on those CITES..sorry to torture you so bad lol!

The possibility of Gwen being a lav snow is very exciting. We are getting a pair of lav het poss axan hets and a fem axan poss lav het from Tracy!
I am happy to see this topic and all the great pix Grant. We also have a pair of lav hets from Brandon sired by Excalibur!Good to know they will be fully compatable with Tracy's line.
Toni

toni, we can't wait to breed gwenny's line back to itself someday! did you see the axanthic pied? axanthic crosses are sweet!

we were also happy to prove gweneviere and excalibur compatible with Tracy's "big lav female" line of lavender at VPI...our DH lav-clown female is out of tracy's larger lavender breeder LTC female and the original clown male, and our dh lav-clown male is out of tracy's smaller adult ltc lav female and the original clown. back in the day, tracy bred her smaller female to a lav male out of the original NERD male and her larger female and hatched a clutch of lavs, and since NERD is compatible with RDR, TSK, and BHB, we esentially proved both excalibur and gwenevier compatible with all those lines as well

so your excalibur hets are good to go with all the other lines out there, and the gweneviere's new line as well

LavenderAlbino.com

I'm going to have to admit your thoughts are alot like mine.

Can we truly rule out colour influences from individual, local populations?
Were alll these Lavs caught in the same hectare or something??

How many various lines of regular Albinos have been imported?
Clowns?
PieBalds?
And they are the same as other Clowns, Piebalds, or Albinos.

Yes, Clown lines. Regardless of the lines, when any two homozygous Clowns are bred together, you get an entire clutch of Clowns. We have VPI Clowns, BHB Clowns, etc. But we still accept they are all just Clowns at the end of the day.
(Snakes. Not people. No jokes about Brian Barczyk, please. )

Is it so so crazy to expect the same from various Lavender albino imports??

I understand marketing plays a role in all of this, but...

I can't possibly be the only one who has these thoughts, right??

BB

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"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

Brandon,
You are right. We really don't know what is going on with this girl. When we bred her this year I sure wasn't absolutely convinced that she was going to produce visible lavenders - and then when she did and they looked like regular lavs, it added to the mystery discussed in this thread. There really haven't been that many lavenders around for long enough to really know about any variations that may occur. It is one of the reasons we like working with them. Time will tell what may or may not be going on here. My son started the post to start the discussion and get opinions. She is an interesting snake and we will get it figured out with a little time.
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.
Grant

How about maybe she is just a washed out Lavender Albino. Take T-Albinos.... you have washed out or light phase, regular, and high contrast. They all are T- Albinos but look different. Its kinda crazy how could this be? I don't mean to bash your hopes of her being something else but I would say she is just a lighter colored Lavender Albino. I guess you could say her original parents could be Hypo Xanthic causing her to have little orange/yellow to her. That is just my 2 cents. Take care, Thomas

when we first got her, I originally agreed with you and thought she might just be an exceptionally faded lavender, mainly because even as recently as last year, there was still only a handful of adult lavenders out there, and who was to say there were not some lavs out there that just happened to look like her...as of last year there were maybe less than a dozen adult females in the world??? heck, some "big breeders" even told me that only the females turn dark purlpe and the males do not get dark...well....we now have three adult males that disproove that

now that there are lot more adult animals from '05, '06 and '07 grown up...she really stands out as particularly unique...i have never seen or heard of another lav ANYWHERE NEAR as hypo/faded as Gweneviere is...if you ask me, the brightness of the neon-yellows is the trademark of the morph...the degree and depth of purple may differ specimen to specimen, but every one i've seen has that smokin bright neon regardless...from babies to the less purple adults....i would really be interested in seeing another lav of ANY size that doesnt exhibit that trademark bright neon that every single other lav i have seen in pictures or person has? Also, if she was just a superfaded lav and nothing more, how come her homozygous lav babies, that recieved 50% of their homozygous lavender phenotype from her are NOT FADED IN THE SLIGHTEST, and all but indistinguishable from other lav hatchlings from other clutches?

if you bred an extreme super faded albino to a super high contrast regular albino...normally you would expect some of the babies would be at least somewhat faded...sometimes you have a few more faded babies than others, but in the case with the 8 lavender hatchlings we hatched so far this year, NONE of them looked faded at all in the slightest degree...and gweneviere's babies were indistinguishable from lav babies from another clutch....

since it appears her phenotype has not shown up in the 12 babies that have hatched so far out of her, it is probably not a codom/dom morph...

for the above reasons i am more in the camp that feels she is probably a double homo...but if anyone out there could show us some pics a similar animal that would help clear things up in the mean time while we wait to breed her line back to itself...

does anyone out there have any pics of a lavender at ANY age that is ANYWHERE near as hypo-emerald as she is? even slightly faded at all?