Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Took some pics of babies last night on a gray card table
plains albinos Iowa and Nebraska strains

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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

the nebraska strain reminds me of what in other types of snakes they call "lavender" albino... with the rich purple tones and dark (slightly creepy) eyes!!! the Iowa is what comes to mind when I think of a classic amelanistic animal!!! nice comparison pics!!

Yes I totally agree Shannon, lavender or sometimes called carmel or burgandy albino usually correlates to T , which I would say the Nebraska falls under, and now owning a Schuett albino eastern I would say that it too might be in that catagory, of course it has flame blood too, so who knows.
But untill those biochemical studies are done we are guessing, but it's a good guess at this point.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

For some reason I thought I had a plus sign there but it didn't show up
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

I was going to add T positive to my description of the nebraska albino, but I was not quite sure because some t positive albinos almost look like extremely hypo normals. But, I would guess this is an example of very, very low levels of melanin!!! Looking into the eyes of my neb. female, I can't see how there wouldn't be!

The way I look at it, some of these genes are not a 100% on/off switch, there may be overlap and/or gray area, or "leaking faucet". Yeah, if you look at Nebraska albino the eyes have quite a bit of darkness, compare to Iowa albino nothing but pink glass.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Very nice to help compare. I agree that it does kinda resemble the lavender phase albino's out there. I have a lavender retic and I love the purple shades they cast. Has anyone crossed them and produced a homozygous for both strains yet? If so can you post a picture of it?

I'm only going to speculate, but it probably would look like an Iowa albino and you wouldn't be able to tell. The lightening power of that gene would probably overpower the tendency of the nebraska albino's to retain some darker hues. The iowa albino looks to be a cleaner strain that removes absolutely every trace of dark pigment, and I think that this would follow through even if the snake was also nebraska albino... I could be wrong though!

Interesting that you should ask because both of those two albinos pictured are from the same litter, so it's likely that one or both of them are at least het for the other strain, possibly even homozygous for both. As it turned out the father of the litter is an Iowa snow that is in fact het for nebraska albino (obviously since one of his offspring was a nebraska albino, the mother was het Xmas albino which is an Iowa strain compatible and she is also het for nebraska as well, obviously)
Scott and I have been talking about the possiblity that the cream colored snow that I produced, which I also produced a few this year, that they might in fact be homozygous for both Iowa snow and nebraska snow, which I intend to prove out either way. Since they basically look like mostly like an Iowa snow, your theory might end up to be true Shannon.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

It would been my guess that she is right as well. I know it's not always the case is the only reason I asked. I would suspect the Iowa would bleach out the cream colors as well if I guessed.

I had bred a high red Iow albino to a Nebraska albino many years ago. They produced double hets for both traits. and then bred these back to one another. The lone "Iowa" albino I held onto looks like a regular albino however a Nebraska that I held back has some smoking coloration. I bred this male to a Double het (Iowa & Nebraska albino) from Don Belnaps stock and got some nice Nebraska albinos and hets. Its hard to say at this time if these albinos will color up similarly as their father, only time will tell. Pics are of the actual Nebraska male that I was talking about.

Scott

Is that the male nebraska that you bred (or will breed next year) to the wild caught red radix? that should be a nice pairing for producing high red nebraska F2s
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Jeff,

That is the male that I bred to the high red plains, she appears to be gravid too. This should produce some beautiful morphs in the F2's, possibly a yellowish albino w/ red and purple intermixed is what am hoping for...know one really knows though until they are ultimately produced and raised up.

Scott

Oh yeah, geeze that should be a good one, can't wait to see those results, should be a smoker. I think I am going to cross my red radix to the iowa albino strain instead (actually iowa snow) probably not as much potiential there but can't hurt to outcross anyway.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Scott,

the female nebraska I got from you at daytona is getting that same dark orangeish red on her scales like that!!! I was wondering what the heck it was!