Reptile & Amphibian Forums

now ive done some readin, and ive had some discussions concerning fat tails, and their supposed morphs. now ive seen animals labelled as leucistic, a-melanistic, and hypomelanistic. some people have told me that they are in fact different morphs, but couldnt tell me wht the difference is. other tell me they are all the same morph with some people calling the varying degrees of color different variations....and other just call them different things for the sake of confusion.

so what is the deal with fat tails and these supposed morphs? are lecistics, amels, and hypos in fact the same morph? any help would be greatly appreciated.

i am also looking for some of these animals...you can email me at pmile69@yahoo.com

thanks in advance for reponses phil w
my band

hello, as for my knowing about the definition on Fattail Gecko Morphs is:

a leuzistic is for me a pure white one with only black or maybe darkblue eyes. i only saw one picture until now, in a book.

a amelanistic ( albino) is for me that the fattail geckos have red or purple red eyes, they are also mostly shy about the light, they have no melanin ( black pigment ) on their body color, people keep them in different colortypes, like normal, peach, deep tangerine or also in lighter colors, and i have heard that some people call them leuzistic, but i don´t know why.

hypomelanistic means less black pigment, that should be geckos with more lighter colors, like the normal "nature" ones have dark brown areas. so they hypos have more lighter brown or maybe some parts who show more white in it. for example i saw a fattail gecko picture which was named as a "Ghost" fattail gecko with much light colors on them, that is what i would call also a hypo.

but for all the people who read my thread here and who are not the same mind as i am about the morphs, can write their experiences with the declaration here, because there are many breeders who keep and breed the fattails for longer time as i do and maybe i am wrong with my answere about the morphs, so far i hope i could helped a bit.
regards stefan

www.reptilwelt.de

I believe that many breeders of all types create their own “morph names” to set themselves apart from others. Take a look at all the crazy morph names individuals give their captive bred baby bearded dragons.

Leucistic to me is no pigment. All white
Amelanistic (Albino)
Hypomelanistic (fits closer to a phase to me)
Peach phase (bands are peach color)
Tangerine (tang) phase bands are reddish
Caramel phase bands are a light caramel color
Pied (has at least one colored sock on)
Striped has a stripe down center of back
Banded has the colored bands (typical AFT)
Jungle bands are broken up into blotches

Then if describing the critter, you could say it’s a Amelanistic, peach, striped AFT.

well could someone post some pics identifying the different types of fat tails then? i was recently at the daytona show, and more recently (yeterday) at the MARS show. peopl ethere are selling fat tails labelled as leucistic that look like "albnos" but with dark eyes. i always thought that leaccstics where in fact all white (much like the blizzard lizard)with black eyes. and albinos lacked black pigment and had red eyes. the animals that i looked at looked albinistic, but had dark eyes. i have seen pics of lighter "leucy" fat tails, but am stil confused.

i bought one of these awesome looking fat tails. i will post a picture later on.

Well here are some pictures of my ones, they are all Tangerine Amelanistic ( albino ) ones and one tangerine amelanistic (albino )striped one, hope this can help a bit.
regards stefan

www.reptilwelt.de

and here is the tangerine amel striped one.

and here is some offspring of them with one of the males.

Fantastic looking AFTs you have!

those are some NICE animals. now those are amels...and thats what some of the pther morphs being passed off as leucys etc kilda look like. given, your animals are a bit nicer. you should sell me one phil w.

are they hets or will they "whiten" out as they age? I have a trio of hets, and am wondering how I will tell when babies hatch whether they're het, or whether I've got an amel? Is it obvious at hatching?
Thanks - gorgeous geckos!

they are no hets, they are homozygote ones ( that means that they are albinos or amelanistics), they hopefully turn to be to the same color like the parents, but that needs a bit time. on picture i posted they were only about one week old and at that time they look all pink. to see how the color of them gets defently, the most fattails need about 6 to 8 months.
regards stefan

Thank you - I really appreciate the info. As this is my first time breeding these geckos (hopefully, after the first of the year), is there a book or a site with AFT breeding info I should check out?

hello, well if you do a search with the google search machine, and you put the words in "caresheet fattailgecko" so you will find something.
regards stefan

You got some real cute gecko's.

I especially love the pic of the baby sitting on the adults back
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A tangerine and albino peach