Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is thge history about the albino morph?

More of a genetic defect than a morph...

Albinos are a rare natural occurances, but through selective breeding they can make them regularly... I believe the first full Albino was made by breeding it to its parent to produce a full one (forget the genetic term.) I believe these were originally made available by Ron Temper, may be mistaken.

There are actually genetically distinct different albino strains or morphs: Tremper, Rainwater (Vegas), and Bell. Ron Tremper and Tim Rainwater (also called Las Vegas strain now due to the disrepute that Tim Rainwater fell into) came up with theirs at around the same time I believe. Mark Bell introduced/discovered his strain later. Albinism is a recessive trait, so if you breed a Tremper albino to another Tremper albino you will get all albinos. However breed a Tremper to a Bell albino and your offspring won't be albino, they will lokk normal but will be heterozygous for both Bell and Trempoer strain albinism. To my knowledge no one has yet produced an albino that is honmozygous for two strains at once, and I am not even sure if it is possible.

This of course is only referring to the strain of albinism. People have bred other traits into the different albino lines, so we now have jungle albinos, hypo albinos, stripe albinos, patternless albinos and tangerine albinos.

This is a tangerine tremper albino

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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

This might be a strange question, but...if you didn't get your albino from a breeder who said which "line" it was from. How do you know which one you have? I don't know if I worded that right. The reason I'm asking is all my babies are pet store geckos (bought from a breeder through the company but I don't know who) and they are two albinos, but they have totall different colors/marking. So how would you describe my girls, just "pet store line" albinos lol Odd question I'm sure, but I've always kinda wanted to know. I can post pics if that would help. Thanks!

-Kristen

If you got it from Petco it's Tremper as that's all they carry, as I understand it.

Otherwise, you can get an opinion/educated guess from people here on the strain, but the only was to know for sure is to breed it to another albino of confirmed starin- if you get all abinos, it's the same strain. If you get none, it's different.
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos