Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Have leucistic American alligators prouduce offspring in captivity? While on the subject does anyone know what offspring from leucistic alligator X amelanistic alligator cross would look like?

I'm not aware of any lucy offspring ever being produced. Not sure why as they would be very profitable.
A lucy crossed with an amel would produce all amels that are het for leucism.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old

>>>A lucy crossed with an amel would produce all amels that are het for leucism.

Wouldn't the offspring be double-hets, but all with the normal phenotype? Where would the second recessive gene for amelanism come from?

You are correct, they would all be normal offspring. Some would be het for leucism and some would be het for amelanism. (If this were even a proven trait for alligators)
I based my initial response on albinism in alligators. We know that a proven pair of alligators carrying the albinism gene were responsible for all of the albinos. We dont know what the parents of the leucistics carry or how exactly some of their offspring are homozygous for leucism.
But now that I think about it, the original question was a little misleading. Has anyone ever seen a amelanistic alligator? I have seen hypomelanistic ones but not one that has no color and is not either albino or leucistic.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old

there are some crazy looking melanistic gators, they were listed on KS a few years back.

t- albino, leucistic & melanistic are the only gator morphs I know of .... 20 or so years ago someone had a crazy looking black w/ high red marked gator (I think it was SAAF).

Oh, then there is that "jesus" marked gator, lol

I wish some the albino gators would get to breeding and actually producing offspring!! I'm waiting to see them bred into chinese to produce some crazy albino hybrid gators then start down sizing them into super dwarf albino chinese american gators that max out at 4-6ft
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Great Lakes Zoological

Even better, bred with black caimans! BTW, I did mean to say albino and not amelanistic on my initial post (sorry don't know what I was thinking).

actually the terms albino and amelanistic mean exactly the same thing(at least when referring to t- albinos). And in theory if leucistic gators prove genetic which there should be no reason for them not to, leucistic x albino would produce all normal looking double hets for both traits. Also another morph that was left out is the hypomelanistic which is very very cool looking.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

aLL THE OFFSPRING WOULD BE 100% DOUBLE HET ALL OF THEM
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Archie Bottoms

Cool. Now all we need is for someone(or a zoo) who has a breeding pair of both morphs to PLEASE make a conscious effort to bred them. PLEASE!!!! LIKE ASAP!!!

Unfortunately I dont see this ever happening. Zoos and institutions that have leucistics boast that their specimens are perfectly normal healthy alligators while albinos are sickly and sterile. I am paraphrasing the sign at the Leucistic display at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.
As far as I know there are no female lucys alive (unless one of the two recently discovered ones are). All of the ones still alive from the first discovery are males.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old