Reptile & Amphibian Forums

in 2000-2002 several people bought dragons sold as leucistic, we have heard from one that they did not bred leucistic babies. Both the mother and father were bought as leucistic, but when bred they produced a variety of color of babies, no pure leucistic.

Had they been true leucistic, all the babies should have been leucistic, so we were wondering from anyone else that bought any of these, what offspring they hatched?

I have wondered what people would get with het x het breedings, or even leucistic x hets cause there should be obvious differences in the clutch between the leucistics and the hets/normals. Chris

I bought two supposed hets from someone back east last spring and their first clutch hatched two weeks ago...and not a LEUCISTIC in the bunch!

Sigh.

I have sold a few of my hets, but none of them are even close to breeding age, yet....should be, next summer...or at least the guys will be now...and the girls next year....

It will be even more interesting when my hets do breed, because I bought all my original stock from a *very well known* guy in Southern California. (Hmmmm.....)

We'll see!

Here are four babies less then a week old. The 2 on the left are brother and sister.
One is a het and the other is a hypomelanistic.There is a difference as you can see from
day one. They were a cross between a hypopastel/leucistic X het.I get 6-8 that are hypomelanistic from a clutch of 20. The two on the right are also hypomelanistic. They are
from two different breedings. One is a hypopastel and the other is a cross between a hypopastel and a
leucistic.I can't tell the difference from the two from the start.If there were two different traits I should have gotten all hets from the
hypopastel x leucistic.Actually double hets. I have had pseudo leucistics that were lavender,white,white with some orange,
white with some yellow. To me they are all hypomelanistic that breed recessive. Depending on your parents color make up depends on how white or yellow or orange the offspring will be, lacking most of the dark pigment.
The offspring that are from normal/grey looking parents tend to have the most white in the offspring.JMO
Rob

When you say hypopastel/leucistic x het, are you saying both parents are hets for leucistic or referring to the luecistic as just a hypopastel and the het as a hypopastel het?

The hypopastel/leucistic is a cross on the male side. He is hypomelanistic. The het is a hypopastel het.
Rob

Then the two siblings on the left aren't guaranteed het at all if the male was "het for leucistic" and the female wasn't heterozygous or homozygous for leucistic.

There's only a 50% chance they're het for leucistic.
-----
Axe
The Reptile Rooms

Never mind, scratch that, you didn't say if either of them are in fact homozygous or heterozygous for "leucistic". You just said that it's in the male's lineage (somewhere).

That is, of course, assuming that "leucistic" is a recessive trait, and not just a very pale line-bred characteristic.
-----
Axe
The Reptile Rooms

It seems so easy to get a het these days. People crossing hets and not producing any leucistics. Funny, a shame actually.

leucistics when bred, and people are finding it out... But with saying its het for leucistic, thats hard to prove or disprove as you have no guarantee of or should get leucistic in a clutch.

Point of fact, if people breeding "leucistic to leucistic" and are not getting leucistic, but getting oranges, golds, snows, hypo's...... they were not leusictic to begin with so there are no hets either.

I am very open to anyone providing pictures and refereneces of entire leucistic clutches from leucistic parents.... I don't think they exist... I would like to be proved wrong.

Many people out there paid $1000 - $1500 for a pair of what they were told were leucistic's thinking they would be breeding and selling leucistic babies to recover that cost, they are producing $50 common dragons, a few selling for more as snows...... some nice ones, but still mostly $50 dragons

Thanks for the info guys, I think I'll save my $1000 and wait and see if someone besides the origionator produces and pure leucistics. I have been working on a deal to get another 2 pure leucistic that origionally came from "DD" in California and wasn't sure about it. I have pics of them and they are white patenless and have clear nails, but if crossing 2 leucistics doesn't produce any pure leucistics then I'll put my money on other projects. Good to know. That is probably why the second party who is now selling them doesn't want them anymore. You guys just saved me lots of $$$$! Post your opinions on if there are any true leucistics in the USA please.

After posting on several list and forums, and several people(5) responding who breed what they bought as leucistic to leucistic, NO ONE has been able to produce leucistic offspring.

That pretty much tells us there is no such thing. Hence there is no Het for leucistic either in dragons... Please anyone correct me if I am wrong???

The only person we are still trying to find is a guy that registered with the nick Rob on here and posted this in August, 2001 on the link below that he had breed his leucistic female and male, and she had laid eggs expected to hatch at christmas time, we could not find a post after when they hatched if he got what he expected. Anyone know him or know what happened?
expecting leucistic babies

from a very reliable source is that there are in fact no true leucistic dragons. Leucistic is supposed to mean patternless, now while several lines may go patternless as adults, all babies are born with a pattern, hence no true leucistic. What is going by the name "Leucistic" out there is a rare recessive gene animals that is hard to reproduce. So, while it is not a true leucistic, it is rare and still worth more for that reason.
Just as there were true albinos hatched, the survival rate was next to zero, which is why we do not have any around.
Hope this helps..

If it's a recessive, breeding two animals together that both display the trait would produce clutches that show that trait 100% throughout the clutch.

Patternless, leucistic, whatever they are, the clutches aren't showing that this is a recessive trait.
-----
Axe
The Reptile Rooms

I had to respond to all of the bad press I have seen: I originally imported my stock, which consisted of het adults, from LUke Yeomens (ownwer of Dinosaur Nutrition) in the U.K. From every breeding of het x het, roughly 25% of the animals produced were leucistic (white with clear nails)...the clear nail trait is a seperate, recessive trait and does not mean an animal is leucistic, but all of the leucistics have the nails. I have also produced offspring from het x leucistic and, as expected, roughly 50% of them were showing the leucistic trait. I think the problem lies in breeding: after many generations of inbreeding, is is more difficult to produce any offspring from leucistic x leucistic. That's why I ma concentrating on breeding leucistic x het or het x het. I know of a few people who have told me they purchased animals sold as "leucistcs" from other breeders because they had clear nails, but this in itself does not mean the animals are leucistic. So if you breed these animals to a het you will only produce "possible hets" and if bred to a leucistic they will produce genuine heterozygote for leucistic offspring. Now, having said all that, I am not certain that "Leucistic" is the proper term (just as "albino", "leucistic" and "amelanistic" are probably not the proper term for the light colored fat-tails and leopard geckos out there), but that is how they were marketed to me and I kept the name the same for identification purposes. I know they are different than my snow dragon bloodline because those are a dominant trait and these "leucistics" are definately recessive. Kevin Dunne