Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I came across this female a little while back and thought there is a chance that she may be axanthic? She is about 1100 grams and appears to have no yellow pigment to her at all. I think she is a really interesting looking animal, even if it turns out she is just a "normal", yet,I was wondering what the best course of action is to prove her out?

I have heard/read that there are several axanthic blood lines and not all, if any are compatable.

Is the best method to breed her to a normal and then re-breed her in a couple of years to one of the resulting het. males?

Or, will I save time and effort by purchasing a het. male from a line that looks similar and try to prove her out that way?

Any input is greatly asppreciated.

Regards,

Alan from S. CT.

I would breed her to a normal..produce hets and breed her the following season back to her het son....

Better yet breed her to an albino or other non axanthic morph and at least if she doesn't prove you will have been raising hets for some other morph if not double hets.

It might not be such a bad thing to breed her to a similar looking proven line of axanthic either as even if the babies where all normals you could still answer the question as to if she was genetic by breeding a son back to her. The only down side would be the two lines being mixed if she is genetic but not compatible and there might be axanthic babies later on that would be hard to be sure which line they are.

Or even a male pastel.That way any males hatched out,then bred to mom,would have a chance of being a nice axanthic pastel.(Those first baby pastels might give you some insight as to moms genetics the first year as well).

She looks great,good luck with her.
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Charles Glaspie

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

Yeah, seems like a lot of pastels het axanthic look different from other pastels, a much fainter yellow color.

However, most axanthic appearing snakes do not prove out. From the people I have talked to something like 90% of WC snakes that look axanthic are nothing more than normal snakes with low yellow and do not prove out to be genetic. But that isn't meant to discourage, its a female so breed it no matter what.
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"stupid is, as stupid does" --Mama

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