Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am trying to post a photo for the first time. This is a 2005 albino blue tegu.

Awesome, gotta love those albinos!

You do want to be sure to limit exposure to direct sunlight though.

Is it a male or a female?

Here's one of my tegus..

http://forums.herpsites.net/ratemyreptile.php?do=photo&photoid=56

Rick Sisco
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The Tegu Community - theTegu.com

Hey rick could you please explian why albinos have such a bad repution on your site, I think you owne some(could be wrong) so I think you really like them. I think it's one or two people(no names)that have some infuence on the forum(always posting)that pass there opinions as facts and the rest of the forum follows them.I don't think albinos are Geneticly inferior animals at all.There are so many albino reptiles out there but the tegus are the only ones getting a bad rep. Is it mabey somthing to do with Ron St Pierre producing them? They(no names)don't seem to fond of him either. I love your site and tell anyone buying a tegu to check it out its got alot of info on it. I'm sorry about my rant and this is just my opinion and means nothing.
Thanks for all your work keeping up such a great sight!!!

Anyone on my website, like on this website, can state their opinion. If you have been around awhile and earned peoples respect, then you will have people who trust you. That is how it is anyways, including in real life.

As far as albinos; albino tegus (or many albino lizards for that matter) are different than albino snakes. Snakes do not require direct sunlight or UVB. Tegus do. This causes some concern/discussion because too much direct sun or UVB could be bad because it's an "albino" which inherently has issues with light sensitivity but being a tegu, it requires what it has a sensitivity to. You need to make sure to give them enough UVB, but not too much.

Another factor is that tegus rely a lot on sight. Hatchling albino tegus can have issues catching/eating moving prey (crickets, mealies, roaches, etc) and even have an issue taking motionless food items. They often require a bit of work (hand feeding) to let them learn how to use their other senses.

I am unsure what the unnamed peoples opinions are, but everyone has opinions. Their opinions are no more or less valuable than mine or yours. Some will agree with my opinions on albinos because I have some experiance with albinos, some may not. I like albinos, but I know the pros and cons. I am willing to put in the required effort to raise them.

I hope I have answered your questions.

Rick Sisco
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The Tegu Community - theTegu.com

I hope my post was not taking the wrong way because I do enjoy going to your site.The point I was trying to say is that the albinos are here, there not going away so if we tryed to educate people on how to properly take care of them when they post about them insted of condemning them for wanting to get or breed a albino, it would be better for the owners breeders and the tegus.
Just a idea, mabey on your care sheets page under the blue tegus a small paragraph on the proper care of the albio blues.
I think Ron should have done it, but what better place than TheTegu.com

If you read many of the negative blue albino posts from "those people", you'll see that most of them have never owned an albino blue tegu and in many cases, never owned a blue tegu at all. So consider who this information is coming from. I own and have bred snow and albino blues and love them. All of my animals are provided UV lighting and while their eyes do tend to be more sensitive, I have never had one that was actually blind. Nor have I had one yet show any signs of any skin problems from exposure to UV. One of the biggest problems with albino tegus is over line breeding. MANY breeders not only use siblings as their breeders but then they sell sibling pairs from these sibling breedings making for multiple generations of direct inbreedings. I've always been very careful to only breed to het animals that have been outcrossed. I've never had a problem with hatchlings feeding and I attribute this to having good strong bloodlines. The blue tegu pool of genetics is small enough without breeders trying to make a quick buck by not outcrossing. So...if you decide to purchase an albino (or any blue tegu), make sure you ask the breeder if the pair you're about to buy is related and if the pair they came from is related.
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E. M. Allen
www.RiversideReptiles.net