Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im not quite sure what all these words mean that i have been seeing. like hypomelenistic, aneryistic, melenistic, luecistic. can somone please clear those up for me?

There's a glossary link that explains a lot of reptile related terms if you click on Care Sheets/FAQs/Features (under The Forums link near the top). That may help you out.
Lora

The terms you mentioned are used to describe different variations of snakes, especially Corns. I think it's a lot easier to discuss snake genetics in terms of Corn Snakes anyway, since they seem to be available in the widest variety of morphs.

The terms, such as hypomelanistic, amelanistic, anerythristic, etc., describe a "normal" cornsnake that has specific genes that cause certain colors and/or patterns to be exaggerated, subdued, or completely absent. For example, "hypomelanism" is an animal (in this case, a Corn Snake) that has a decrease in the amount of melanin it produces. Therefore, a Hypomelanistic (or Hypo) Corn Snake would be one that has drastically reduced amounts of black pigmentation in its color (hypo="under", melanin="black pigment" ). In a Hypo Okeetee, for example, this would be evident by the narrowing of the normally wide black bands that encircle the dorsal spots.

So, here's a quick list of some of the more common traits...

Amelanistic- completely lacking in BLACK pigmentation (Also referred to as Albino)
Anerythristic- completely lacking in RED pigmentation (This one gets a little tricky, as there are several different types of Anerythrism)
Anery A- lacking all BLACK pigment, but usually retain YELLOW under the chin
Anery B (or Charcoal)- lacking all BLACK pigment, NO YELLOW under chin
Axanthic- lacking all YELLOW pigmentation (more commonly used reffering to Ball Pythons, etc.)
Erythristic (Bloodred)- extreme production of RED pigment; dark red with white bellies
Hypomelanistic- reduction in BLACK pigmentation

That's pretty much the basics of the basics. There are other genes that play roles in pattern, such as Zig-Zag and Stripe, but we can get into all that later. If you're interested, you can e-mail me privately, or we can continue to use this forum. In the meantime, just remember, the following:
Melan= BLACK
Eryth= RED
Xanth= YELLOW
The rest is just prefixes
A(n)= WITHOUT
Hypo= UNDER or REDUCED
Just keep that in mind, and you should be able to figure out what any variation SHOULD look like from the name alone. If I can be of anymore help, or if I've done nothing but add to your confusion, just let me know. Take care...

E-mail me!
-----
-JH

1.0 Amel Corn
1.0 Dot-Dash Cal King
0.1 50/50 Cal King
1.1 Trans-Pecos Rat Snakes
3.4 Baby Corns (Assorted Flavors)
0.0.1 Ball Python
0.0.1 Bullsnake
0.0.1 Texas Long-nose
1.1 Bearded Dragons

What of True albinos that lack all pigment rather than just Black pigments?
-----
2.4.1 Leos
1.1.13(eggs) Beardie
2.0 Burm
0.1 Common Boa
0.0.1 Sand Fish
0.2 Desert Tortoise hatchlings
Wish for: Candoia Sp, Frilled D, BTS