Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2 het for albino fattail females, from two different sources. The first one I got was a rich brown and black, and kept that coloring as she grew (she's almost adult size now). The second was lighter even as a baby, black and a lovely yellow, and as she's growing her black is fading. She's half grown now, and her head especially is quite faded, almost all of the original black. Is this common with some hets, or am I doing something wrong? I'm raising her exactly like I did my older girl. Any comments or suggestions are much appreciated!

With morphs of any Leos or AFTs you will never know what the babys will look like when they are older.
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-The guy who posts messages(Kevin)

Tarentolas@hotmail.com
Geckos
1.1.0 Gekko gecko(Geico and Gekko)
1.1.0 Eublepharis macularius(Leo the male Blizzard and Cleo the Hi-yellow female)
2.0.0 Hemitheconyx caudicinctus(Gex the striped male and Bandit the banded male)
1.0.0 Tarentola mauritanica(Croc the light phase)
1.0.0 Hemidactylus turcicus(Med)
Other Lizards
0.1.0 Basiliscus basiliscus(Bassie)
1.0.0 Physignathus cocincinus(Louis)
0.1.0 Anolis carolinensis(Apple)
1.0.0 Chamaeleo calyptratus(Ace)
1.0.0 Iguana iguana(Rex)
Boidaes
1.0.0 Python regius(Lenny)
0.0.1 Boa constrictor imperator(Carl)
Turtle
0.1.0 Chrysemys picta(Painty)

So how can you tell when they're little whether they're albinos, hets, orange, khakis, etc? Is there a sure-fire sign, or just a matter of the experience of the breeder?
Thanks so much for replying - I'm really interested in these guys!

Albinism (amelanism) is a morph and the differences between your two animals is a phase (somewhat the same idea as a breed). Neither of yours are amelanistic, but the darker one is the normal or natural phase and the lighter one is often called a peach/orange phase. Your lighter colored animal with less brown is most likely due to a combination of high incubation temperature and a number of generations selectively bred to produce these colors. If two hets mate, they will produce 25% animals exibiting the morph (which also carries the trait), 50% that are heterozygous (het) for the morph, and 25% that do not exibit or carry the trait. Your dark animal will probably produce white amels and the lighter one will produce orange and white banded amels. The white amel would be produced because the genes for a normal colored animal has high amounts of melanin. In the amelanistic the melanophores in the dermal cells are not capable of producing melanin. The other animal would have the white bands where the black is and orange band where the light brown is. The orange is produced by the xanthophores which produce red and yellow coloring in reptiles which still work. In albinism only melanophores are "disabled."
Ashton

My experience with AFT's is that they will change alot as they grow into adults. I was very excited when these two hatched last year, they were just awsome colorwise but have changed into normal colored AFT's

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My posts and replies are my experiences only
1.2.15 Tokays
1.4.10 Leos(13 albino)
1.2.0 AFT's(amel male)
0.2.0 Stenodactylus Petrii(Dune Geckos)

It was extrememely helpful. I guess I can hope for an orange phase, and see what she grows into. I'm getting a striped het for albino male, and planning to breed them next year. With the three of them, I should get alot of varation! Should be exciting watching the babies hatch. LOL!