Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, so some of you know I have this little albino chinese beauty project going.. I purchased 0.1 albino and 2.1 hets originally, from a kinda back alley older guy who didn't use the internet, and was going through a friend.. He supposedly produced them, showed me fuzzy dark pics of the parents via email, and said he was just selling off his entire collection to get out of snakes.. Well it turns out my albino is indeed a male, NOT a female as it was purchased as. I have since sold my female hets our of need for cash, but kept my for sure MALE het because well, my albino was supposedly a female(I lost my probes and was unable to buy more for quite a while).. So doh.. No albinos to pop up in the first clutch, gotta start from scratch with a normal female or two.. Anyhow..

I know the T albinos are almost always brown patterned, of varying shades, and darker yellow... T- albinos are supposed to be an opaque white with bright yellow background.. Well, mine is going on 4ft now, was sold to me as a T albino(but then it was also sold to me as a FEMALE), but has NO BROWN what so ever.. The pattern is not opaque either, but a kind of white transparent violet.. Eye stripe is a kind of irridescent purple. Neck has a tint of goldenrod/orange, rest of the body is bright yellow.. We had a big show here recently, and a friend of mine who breeds both varieties of albinos was there, so I brought him my albino to check out, and he was very puzzled by it as well, as it doesn't look like EITHER that he had(he even had some of both type there to use as examples)..

So what do you guys think? I don't really know what to think.. My previously mentioned friend was so enthused about it that he is going to buy and send me 2 or 3 adult female Chinese beauties to breed to him, so I can send him hets to work with, to see what this wierd albino is.. He has wild cought import albinos, captive bred types of both varieties, this and that, and hasn't seen one like mine.. Maybe this is like in retics with the 3 forms of albino? Lavendar, purple and white albinos? Or maybe it is indeed a T- albino?

Here's a couple slightly older photos, but still exactly the same in color..

This one does the best showing the transparency of pattern

And this one is the best as far as true color goes

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"Land of the Free, because of the Brave"

DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1.1 reticulated pythons
1.0 albino burmese python
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
0.1 sumatran blood python
1.0 green anaconda
1.0 emerald tree boas
2.2 colombian redtail boas
1.0 sonoran boa
1.0 cancun boa
1.2 normal and albino whitewater rosy boas
1.1 albino and het chinese beauty snakes
2.2 taiwan beauties
1.0 cave beauty snake
2.1 western hognose
1.1 eastern blackneck gartersnakes
0.1 anery plains garter
1.0 christmas albino plains garter
0.0.2 NW garters
1.0 sonoran gopher snake
1 tiger leg monkey frog
2 colorado river toads
1 bearded dragons
9 leopard geckos
1.1 central american banded geckos
1.0.3 tucson banded geckos
0.1 nile monitor
1.0 savannah monitor
0.1 russian tortoise

And various Fish, Exotic Mammals, and Birds..

..
-----
"Land of the Free, because of the Brave"

DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1.1 reticulated pythons
1.0 albino burmese python
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
0.1 sumatran blood python
1.0 green anaconda
1.0 emerald tree boas
2.2 colombian redtail boas
1.0 sonoran boa
1.0 cancun boa
1.2 normal and albino whitewater rosy boas
1.1 albino and het chinese beauty snakes
2.2 taiwan beauties
1.0 cave beauty snake
2.1 western hognose
1.1 eastern blackneck gartersnakes
0.1 anery plains garter
1.0 christmas albino plains garter
0.0.2 NW garters
1.0 sonoran gopher snake
1 tiger leg monkey frog
2 colorado river toads
1 bearded dragons
9 leopard geckos
1.1 central american banded geckos
1.0.3 tucson banded geckos
0.1 nile monitor
1.0 savannah monitor
0.1 russian tortoise

And various Fish, Exotic Mammals, and Birds..

Sorry that guy turned out to be the wrong sex but it's still a sweet looking albino beauty.
Any taeniura taeniura or chinese beauty that has brown where it is usually black I think would more likely be a hypo than a albino. My understanding from reading and talking to long time breeders is that T positive albinos would have a little color in the purple color range where they are usually black where the T negative albinos should be white where they would be black if not albino.
Yours seems to show a bit of purple or lavender in his stripe (as you mentioned) along the side of his head which would make him a T positive albino most likly.
This is a picture of my male albino mocquards beauty which I consider a T positive. I think my female albino actually has a little more purple.
Good luck in getting him a new squeeze Kestrel! Randy Whittington

The way I was told, T albinos have the brown patterns, with yellow.. Most I see for sale online look that way. Be kinda funny if they turned out to be hypos instead of albinos. lol. Thing is, aren't they born normal looking and develop the brown over time? Kinda like Tremper albino leopard geckos? I dunno.. Even if he is T plus, he's still pretty. hehe.
-----
"Land of the Free, because of the Brave"

DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1.1 reticulated pythons
1.0 albino burmese python
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
0.1 sumatran blood python
1.0 green anaconda
1.0 emerald tree boas
2.2 colombian redtail boas
1.0 sonoran boa
1.0 cancun boa
1.2 normal and albino whitewater rosy boas
1.1 albino and het chinese beauty snakes
2.2 taiwan beauties
1.0 cave beauty snake
2.1 western hognose
1.1 eastern blackneck gartersnakes
0.1 anery plains garter
1.0 christmas albino plains garter
0.0.2 NW garters
1.0 sonoran gopher snake
1 tiger leg monkey frog
2 colorado river toads
1 bearded dragons
9 leopard geckos
1.1 central american banded geckos
1.0.3 tucson banded geckos
0.1 nile monitor
1.0 savannah monitor
0.1 russian tortoise

And various Fish, Exotic Mammals, and Birds..

I know you have seen this guy before, but for the sake of comparison, here he is again...

I was sold this guy as a baby and told it was an albino female. Turned out to be a male also (we should compare breeders, Kestrel). I now have nine het. babies I'm not sure what to do with. I've been told by some top breeders that it's a T+ albino and others it's a hypo. It looks hypo to me, but I finally decided to be conservative and call it what it was sold to me as, an albino.

I think there was a wave of imports several years ago, and there may have been quite a few albinos imported. There could be more than two albino mutations out there (I guess). Would be nice to finally know for sure

Terry

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Ratsnake Haven: Calico and albino Chinese stripe-tailed ratsnakes, Mandarin ratsnakes, Chinese twin-spotted ratsnakes, South Korean Dione's ratsnake, Great Plains ratsnakes and corns

In the herp hobby we use and "abuse" the term albino, etymologically derives from the latin albus that means white. Usually we herp hobbyst use albino as synonymous of amelanic (without black), so I think that should be correct call your specimen hypo and not albino, because I think he has a little of black pigment. I hope I expressed myself correctly in english.
regards
nazzza

I am not an expert on this, but I think that hypo might be right because the eyes are not the classic pink. It is still a great looking snake.

Both Elaphefan and Nazza are correct. The snake pictured above is a hypomelanistic, not 'albino'. I too believe that the herp hobby abuses the term albino. A true albino would be completely devoid of pigement being pure white with pink eyes. No such snake exists. The only pure white specimens are leucistics which have blue or black eyes. I would prefer if white with traces of other color patterns [and pink eyes] was referred to only as amelanistic - it would cause much less confusion. By the way, the pink is caused by complete lack of pigment so the blood vessels in the iris are visible giving the pink appearance. It looks like Kestrel's and Colubridman's snakes are some type of amelanistic, while Terry's is hypomelanistic.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

Thanks, Matt. I appreciate yours and all the comments. I hope it is hypomelanistic. It'll be nice to see what the babies are like when I cross the father back to one of the hets.

Terry

Hmmm well I dunno.. I've always been told and thought of animals like that, as T albinos.. I've seen "hypo" WCs that look slightly different. The "hypos" i've seen are a more flat color, dark yellow(no orange), and flat brown., with normal colored eyes.. But like you said, who knows which is which.. Maybe we should all pitch in and get some blood testing done.. be a fun project.
-----
"Land of the Free, because of the Brave"

DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1.1 reticulated pythons
1.0 albino burmese python
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
0.1 sumatran blood python
1.0 green anaconda
1.0 emerald tree boas
2.2 colombian redtail boas
1.0 sonoran boa
1.0 cancun boa
1.2 normal and albino whitewater rosy boas
1.1 albino and het chinese beauty snakes
2.2 taiwan beauties
1.0 cave beauty snake
2.1 western hognose
1.1 eastern blackneck gartersnakes
0.1 anery plains garter
1.0 christmas albino plains garter
0.0.2 NW garters
1.0 sonoran gopher snake
1 tiger leg monkey frog
2 colorado river toads
1 bearded dragons
9 leopard geckos
1.1 central american banded geckos
1.0.3 tucson banded geckos
0.1 nile monitor
1.0 savannah monitor
0.1 russian tortoise

And various Fish, Exotic Mammals, and Birds..