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Quick question - what would breeding a carmel albino to a regular albino produce? Are the two morphs compatible?

General assumption is that they are two different and independent mutations and that you would produce normal looking double hets. Furthermore, one might assume that since albino takes away all the dark pigment and caramel only some of it that the eventual double homozygous 1 in 16 from breeding the double hets would look like a normal albino (i.e. albino would cover over caramel).

However, I would be very much interested in hearing if anyone has or is planning on actually breeding albino X caramel. I have this wild theory that they MIGHT be alleles (two different mutations of the same gene). This is always possible with any two mutation just not particularly likely. The only reason I got to thinking about this perhaps being the case with caramel and albino is that there is a line of caramels that tends to throw albinos and in at least one case some alleged hets from this line didn't throw any caramels, only albinos.

If the two mutations where alleles, then the "double hets" would not be normal (since neither the albino or caramel parent would have a normal copy of the common gene to give). It’s hard to say what they would look like but perhaps a really nice caramel. This theory could explain the mix up with the hets if it turns out that the founder "caramel" for the line in question was really a double het albino and caramel that just looks like a homozygous caramel but really isn't. Again, this is just a wild theory and I really don’t know if there is already data disproving it or not.

A quick breeding of a caramel from a line that doesn't throw albinos to an albino from a line with no caramel ancestors could answer this question one way or the other but I suspect most people would consider this breeding a waste of an albino female since normal double hets would be expected and albino would be expected to cover caramel so the combination wouldn't be expected to be worth working toward. I'm doing the best I can to test this theory by breeding one of my 50% chance het albino females to a 66% chance het caramel male but the odds are stacked against this breeding proving anything.

Thanks for the great info - that's exactly what I was wondering about - are the two morphs based on a different set of genes. Please let me know if you get anything interesting from the breeding that you mentioned.

I've not been able to get anyone to fess up to having tried this cross or to be planning it so that's why I'm trying it even though I've got the odds against me. There is only a 1 in 3 chance they are both hets for the respective genes and then I have to hit the 1 in 4 double het and of course it's quite likely they aren't related and any double het will look just as normal as the rest. Actually, I'm not even sure she is big enough to produce eggs so while I'll be happy to post if anything neat comes out don't hold your breath.

we have two clutches of yearling females we bought that were produced from a caramel het male to an albino het female. these are all 50% het for caramel and 50% het for albino. they are all normal looking as was all of the siblings. this does not prove that they are not compatible but is a step in that direction.
good luck Randy with the project,
Stephen
Sooner State Reptiles