Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This past season has been a tough one for me. This was a cross of my proven albino het snow female and my leopard male. I actually didn't know she was pregnant. There was courting but no seen copulation. She continued to eat although a little irregularly, and wasn't a noticeable ovulation or POS.

Earlier in the season I lost a Leo female ph albino that I purchased from Tom Burke. I have a jungle sunglow male that i was going to use to try and prove her out. That also put a damper on trying to get an albino leo litter.

The positive part was that this was the first breeding for my male leo, Nice to know he got it done. One of the offspring was really light. Not quite albino, but lighter than a hypo. not sure what was happening, but hopefully it will happen again next season and see to it happens again. Any ideas?

That is really disappointing that they didn't make it. The color is one of the very LAST things to develop in embryos, so it could easily be lighter due to the color not being fully developed yet. This happens all the time with snakes that don't quite make it, and quite often people think they are unique morphs when it was simply an under-developed neonate.

Just this last season I had an extreme hypo Honduran milksnake neonate that was VERY under-developed and surprisingly was still alive when the others were already pipped and out of their eggs. It was so incredibly pale it looked just like a "snow" or an extreme ghost. It was mind-boggling that this neonate was so far behind the others in its development. I think this could have been due to the embilical cord being kinked or tangled in such a way that the embryo's supply of yolk was severely reduced for it to develop normally. This poor snake was definitely at least several weeks behind in its development. It was very tiny and there was still LOTS of yolk yet to be utilized and absorbed.

If I wouldn't have cut the egg open after the third day when all the others pipped and left it to incubate on its own for another few weeks, it might have even gone on to hatch, but who the hell would have ever known!???????. Just one of those very bizarre and unexplainable things that can happen once in a great while.

Here are a few of the extreme hypos just out of their eggs.

Here is the neonate that didn't make it, but was still alive and VERY under-developed.

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

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