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INTERESTING POST INDEED:

An Albino Eastern Indigo?

Interesting topic for a post. Here is MY **TWO CENTS** worth on the subject Please read, in nothing else other than to get a good chuckle in your day:

I cannot honestly tell you that at one time, as a snake breeder, I didnt hope, wish and pray that I popped out an Albino Eastern Indigo.

BECAUSE I HAVE. Yes I Have...

At one point in this hobby, I was so focused on making money and getting my name known, that I would have begged God himself to bless me with the "next" NEW MORPH of Drymarchon.....or anything else for that matter.Yes, this is the pathetic truth.

I think the motivation was twofold: a) To create revenue, which allowed me to buy even MORE snakes, and b) The fame that comes with having something that no one else does. Bragging rights if you will..............

This is true, and pathetic in its own right. Allthough I have some loose ends to tie up and DEBTS to pay,I am truly glad that as a BREEDER of Couperi that I have evolved from my former way of thinking. Who I am and what the snakes MAKE me is really of little consequence. In snake circles I may be "Fred Albury...breeder of Indigos, but in real life my existance barely merits a ripple in the pond of life. And, in reality, the money ISNT that good, despite rumors otherwise by relatively new breeders. Everyone always wants you think that their is money to be made in breeding whatever THEY are trying to sell you......thats marketing.

If an ALBINO or AMELANISTIC Eastern Indigo were to enter the hobby at this time,my wish is that it be held in a Zoo and not reproduced...EVER. Simply because the GENE POOL of CAPTIVE EASTERN INDIGOS is very limited and has not been properly researched and DNA studies done on ALL major captive populations to afford the luxury of INBREEDING on the level that occurs when you try and reproduce a trait that is RECESSIVE. More harm can come from this than good.

NOW......people will be VERY enthusiastic about this albino being produced, and even want BADLY to produce even more. Why? Because the public is inherently hungry for something that is "NEW".This hunger for new things drives people to cross diffrent types of snakes......all in the name of producing Something...ANYTHING..."crowd".

Only in this case..the "CROWD" isn't very big at all, and that is part of the problem. Limited Gene Pool....Inbreeding...and HABITAT Degredation almost insures that this snake wont be around in the future. There are those that try and breed Drys as a commodity, trying to crank out the highest amount of sheer numbers and sell the most possible. Breeders select to breed RED FACED Couperi because they are considered by some to be more desirable and often command a higher price. I produced red faced Couperi, but did so by breeding UNRELATED red faced males with unrelated all black females, and OCCASIONALLY popped out a red faced baby.Luck of the draw. Just as happy with Black babies. Big ones preferably(I like big healthy neonates)

So...in conclusion, I beleive that people will do whatever they wish with the snakes they have in their care. I cant police them and dont wish to dictate what someone else should do with their snakes, even if I think it is assinine in nature. So...if an albino Eastern is produced, or a leucistic...or a pie bald....NO ONE will truly have control over what happens with that snake unless they purchase it. The SHAME of reproducing it will not outweigh the POTENTIAL to make money off of it and fame off of it. I can only wish that I produce it,so that I can either FREEZE it off....or KEEP it for life and not breed it. Yes I said FREEZE it. some may think that narrow minded, and they have a right to their opinion. Next to the Otter Pops is where he would be.

But then.....no guarantees that Ill be the one to produce it, is there?

Solution: Drymarchon Breeders work on reprodcing more natural occuring forms and focus on locality and TRY and breed unrelated Couperi together and work in conjunction with people to TRY and maintain the natural habitat of the snakes.And try and honestly discern which Couperi are unrelated, truly, in the first place.

Futile? Perhaps.....but the other choice is to just pimp the snakes out and breed for color and oddity. Freak of the week, color of the day, morph of the moment..

Something that has been done with pythons,boas, pituophis, Colubrids galore, and a wide variety of lizards and tortoises and turtles.And frogs...and Fish..etc etc ad nauseum..

Lets take the path least traveled...

Sincerely,

Fredrick Albury
Aztec Reptiles

I agree Fred, the morph thing is getting a little out of hand. Lets keep the drys away from that. Is anyone else tired of seeing all these pink and purple polka dotted snakes?

WES

The only thing I like as much as Pure black is pure white. I do think albino looks sickly but I really like lucistic with the alabaster white and blue eyes.

I am too (tired of seeing plain this or paisley THAT).

Gad, the animals are great the way they ARE in nature thank ya vera much
Thanes Place

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Thane

Good, well thought post.

I personally never understood the appeal of albino animals...they just don't look healthy or vital to me, like it's all been sucked out of them.

cheers,

Josh

Hmmmm...

And, scanning below, at others' posts, I especially like yours as it didn't even involve calling anyone a gay-southern-Nazi.

Refreshing.

Hi,
I am a newly graduated ecologist and conservation biologist from the university of sussex (UK) and a long established critic of the morph feever which has overun the hobby.
I myself keep boas and tortoises and I enjoy it like nothing else in the world. From my home in Napoli Italy I can remember the first importations of green iguanas and ball pythons to Italy in the mid 80s (I was already a fan at the age of 5-6).

Now over the last years the fad of getting hold of as many snakes of as many in-bred morphs as possible has nauseated me.
I realize that every man woman in the world should have a God given right to his or her opinion, but I strongly believe that the people who keep these animals for their freek value are not really interested in the animals themselvs.

All they are interested in is money and showing off. This gives other hobbyists a very bad name with animal protection groups in Europe at least, who rightly feel that if that wasn't a lesser platinum ball python but rarther, for example, a pair of PRADA JEANS, that person would feel the same sort of interest for it.

I personally do not subscribe to this creed. I believe that if anybody is so privileged, that he has the opportunity to own a reptile or amphibian or any other creature of this earth for that matter, he also has the GOD GIVEN DUTY TO RESPECT IT FOR WHAT IT IS.
Breeding closely related animals together is harmful because of harmfull or semi-leathal genes which all organisms have encoded in their DNA - they dont tell you that in the websites about snake genetics - those people think they are so clever!!

I have a terrifying sensation that these people actually form the majority of hobbyists globally, for the most part they must be people who don't realize that what they are doing is wrong, because they only ever speek to their local deeler who is mainly interested in selling...

A smaller (?) contingent is formed by all the various supplyers of these poor creatures. They must be aware that what they are doing is unnatural....but who cares? All they want is to make a quick buck!

I realise that I have probably made many people click off by this stage, but if you reached this far closely examine your reasons for keeping herps.

I keep herps because I believe that they are truly interesting and facinating creatures of this world who have lived on this planet longer than we have and therefore deserve a little more respect than being bought and sold on the internet as freek pets.

In fact ideally these animals, if they must be kept, would desearve quasi natural captive settings rather than the plastic cages frequently used by some owners (this particular comment of course is case specific)

I hope I will find people out there who share my feelings and devotion to the wellfare of these still misunderstood creatures and I hope we will be able to enjoy our hobby for many years to come without the constant worry of money and fads and albino platinum spider whatevers.

Ciao
Roland

Breeding closely related animals together is harmful because of harmfull or semi-leathal genes which all organisms have encoded in their DNA - they dont tell you that in the websites about snake genetics - those people think they are so clever!!

If there is not any problem with the genes of both specimen, why problem occurs? If you have 2 healthy specimen without any genetic problems, why take non "prooven healthy" new blood. Ingreeding is very common with isolated population of all kind of reptiles avoer the world.
I don't want to start a fight, i just want to understand if it's really bad to do inbreeding or if it's just a belief.
Thank's

"If you have 2 healthy specimen without any genetic problems, why take non "prooven healthy" new blood. Ingreeding is very common with isolated population of all kind of reptiles avoer the world."

hi chuck911jeep,
(sorry, i wish people used their birth names on this forum)

the simple answer (inbreeding increases the probability of "fixing" recessive alleles, which may be detrimental) requires some basic genetics. inbreeding increases the number of homozygotes in a population. and this means that you have an increased chance of seeing individuals come up homozygous recessive.

if you haven't taken genetics or don't remember genetics from biology class, then a longer posting will be necessary.

two healthy snakes can each carry a recessive allele that would have a 25% chance of showing up in the homozygous state, which can potentially be detrimental.

now the flip side of this (and an important question regarding the captive indigo population)is that after several generations of inbreeding, lethal or detrimental alleles are lost through death or inability to breed. in other words you can also fix a population with survivable genetics. case in point, the highly inbred lab mice and lab rats. so the question is, where are the indigos? on the slide down the gentic toilet, or coming out of a survivable bottleneck?

hope this helps,

matt

IF...................................two healthy snakes can each carry a recessive allele that would have a 25% chance of showing up in the homozygous state, which can potentially be detrimental.
IF is the key word people.

But the problem can be also find in unrelated pair, no?

Hi and thank's for your response!
My name is Justin(i'm Canadian) and there is already a Justin on the forum so i think using my name will be confusing for others members...
Sorry but i'm not really familiar with genetics but i'm all ear opened. Don't know if your law are flexible about letting enter new blood from other country but i have 2 bloodline of Indigo that could show interest for some of you and if you want and can do some work(if it's allowed, i don't know anything about US indigo regulations), i'm ready to cooperate in your "new blood" line. I don't have the biggest population (2.1) but if i can help some of you, i will....
Thank's for interest
Justin Marois

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Let me start off by stating that I wholeheartedly agree with Fred's opinion (other than freezing the abberrant indigo, that is). I myself strive to put together completely unrelated stock with ALL of the species that I work with, including my feeder mouse colony. In general, I have noticed that specimens coming from unrelated stock are somehow more vigorous than those coming from an inbred colony, be it with mice, snakes, or whatever; I've heard the lack of vitality expressed by the offspring of such inbred colonies referred to as "inbreeding depression" by my buddies in the biology department, and I personally feel that many species of captive reptiles either do suffer or will suffer from this effect at some point in the near future. But somebody has to play devil's advocate here, so:
1) Do we really know how related or unrelated wild populations of indigos are? Are we sure that different populations aren't just siblings inbreeding with each other? I know that inbreeding must occur in the wild, but are there any studies that show how frequently it occurs?
2) Do we really know how detrimental inbreeding is in some sort of quantitative fashion? I'm aware of the theoretical arguments and the more qualitative reasons to avoid it (I avoid it scrupulously), but is there any real measure of how bad it is (statistical studies, etc)?
3) Is it known whether taking a relatively inbred specimen and outcrossing it to a completely unrelated animal will restore vigor to the line?

The fact that an albino has possably shown up in a population in my opinion is not a good sign as far as a geneticly diverse population.

"1) Do we really know how related or unrelated wild populations of indigos are? Are we sure that different populations aren't just siblings inbreeding with each other? I know that inbreeding must occur in the wild, but are there any studies that show how frequently it occurs?"

to my knowledge, nothing is published on population genetics for this species. we can model general rules of dispersal patterns, age structure, fecundity, and lifespan, other than that, it would be pure speculation at this point.

"2) Do we really know how detrimental inbreeding is in some sort of quantitative fashion? I'm aware of the theoretical arguments and the more qualitative reasons to avoid it (I avoid it scrupulously), but is there any real measure of how bad it is (statistical studies, etc)?"

the evidence is pretty clear for several groups of animals. heterozygote vigor has been documented for many species using several different measures of physiological attributes. the more obvious examples are some of the problems associated with inbreeding in wild populations of cheetah. also look at several different breeds of dog (e.g. hip displasia).

"3) Is it known whether taking a relatively inbred specimen and outcrossing it to a completely unrelated animal will restore vigor to the line?"

i haven't read, nor have i looked for, any documentation of such studies, but there are breeders of snakes who swear by it. my guess is that there should be good published documentation in the animal sciences literature, poultry science, beef industry, etc. these folks are big business and i doubt they would put too much of their investment into pure speculation. additionally, the fisheries industries may also have some studies related to this (Vic?).

matt

I personally have never been particularly enamored of amel snakes. I just don't care for the pink eyes. I do think a leucistic Indigo would be pretty spectacular. Leucistics tend to have a more solid white than amels of the same species. Of course, with a solid black colored species like couperi, the eye color might be the only difference between a leucistic and an amel. I'm trying to recall if I have seen any other black colored snakes that breeders have come up with amel morphs. None immediately come to mind. Has anyone ever had an oddly colored full term dead in the egg Drymarchon. If so, tell us about it...........Steve G.

i did in fact have an overterm unicolor egg back in 2001. when i finally gave up on it & cut it open, the fully developed embryo appeared to be amel.....or something. it was definitely way different from normal, it was a pale white. i remember remarking about it to doug t. in a private email shortly thereafter. nothing more came of it & i tossed the egg. i still have those same parents though there has never been a repeat. i'm not really sure what i was looking at other than the fact that it did not resemble any other babies before or since......