Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am looking for information on the origins of the albino everglades rat snake. I have seen several post on various boards saying another type of rat snake must have been bred into the line to introduce the albino gene. Others have stated that there are indeed true albinos in the everglades line. Any reliable information that could be provided would be appreciated. Thanks.

PM the forum member "foxturtle" from the forums here, he claims to know the origin history and locale of those. I really don't know this with any certainty, so who knows...*shrug*

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

If you are talking about hypo Everglades, which are sometimes called albino, then yeah, they are "pure" Everglades rats.

Secondarily, all the captive Everglades rats are just South Florida yellows selective bred for orange coloration. In that regard there really isn't such a thing as a pure Everglades rat anyway.

If what you're saying is true, and I do believe it's accurate, why not breed an albino yellow rat to one of those really orange everglades? It would still be a pure rat snake. I'll bet with selective breeding over the years, the snake would look incredibly orange and beautiful, probably better than the hypo everglades.

Well, the albino yellows from Central Florida stock, so you'd really be breeding away from the Everglades look to start with. No doubt they'd be nice, though.

Thanks for everyone's response. The reason I asked in the first place is I have a stunning male Hypo Everglades rat snake. Over the last 2 years I have attempted to locate a female to breed him with to no avail. I recently purchased what the vendor claimed was an albino Everglades rat. Since I had never heard of the albino Everglades I was a little suspicious. The vendor said he has a pair and has been breeding them for years so I went ahead and purchased a female for possible mating with my hypo when she is of breeding age. Again, thanks for everyone's input on the subject.

Now that we are getting specific, keep in mind if it doesn't have pink eyes, it is not the same gene as in the yellow rats in the hobby that Howie Sherman was working with for example. Those would be two VERY different simple recessive genes,.......hypomelanism and amelanism. Breeding a hypo Everglades x amel(albino) yellow rat would produce nice normal looking offspring that would be double heterozygous for both traits (unless of course one parent happened to be het for the other that is from previous lineage). In which case when bred together you could get hybinos as well as amels and hypos. Those would be hypos that were masked by the amel gene at the same time and would "look" like normal amels but would not be.

~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Keep in mind that the original intent of the bubblegum rat project was to eventually produce something resembling an albino Everglades rat snake. Though the adults are more strongly patterned than a pure Everglades rat snake, I have seen dealers sell what were obviously young bubblegum rats as Everglades because they were orange.

The hypos are often called albinos. They look more like albinos as babies. Some look almost like really nice "normal" 'glades rats when they are adults. See attached pics of juvenile hypo Everglades and bubblegum rats.

I second what Fox Turtle said about the albino yellows. That could be interesting though.