Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've seen the ads for albino alterna on another site. Are these pure alterna or crosses?
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Greg Jackson

Crosses. Pure albino alterna do not exist, that we know of anyway...
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facebook.com/SnakesToTheMax

those sure look pure to me, if i were u i would buy them.

Do I sense a little sarcasm there?
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Greg Jackson

from 101 na its all good

I have been looking to get into something profitable. Do you think the albino alterna represents an "investment quality" project, much like the Purple Sapsucker Ball Pythons?
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Anything billed as albino L. alterna has L. ruthveni gene intromission in its lineage. L. ruthveni is the source of the albino pigment character and this taxon readily hybridizes into other closely-related clades. Accept that these are simply deli-cup captive-mix animals, and representative of wild populations genetics. Acquire them knowing these facts. That's my two cents worth on the subject.

Sorry for tha omission of the word "not", my brain goes faster than my fingers on a keyboard.

ALL of the ads for albino alterna are not only crosses, but very obvious crosses. I have seen one alterna that seems to be the best chance of being a true albino. It was collected on Juno Rd. south of Bakers. Several personel from the SA zoo have looked at it and agree it is alterna. Also, a grad student at Texas A & M did Mdna on it and it showed to be alterna with no ruthveni in it. In addition, the three years of offspring produced pure alterna phase and it is my understanding a cross will not do that. I'm not saying it is really a pure alterna, but consider this.....alterna are one of the most commonly bred snakes in the hobby and if it is possible for a leucistic to pop out why not an albino? Also, it is a fact that annulata and alterna cross in the wild. I know Troy Hibbits has had dna run on a dead specimen and it was found to have an annulata as a father but the snake looked pure alterna and was wild caught from the story I heard. Of course Troy could verify this too if you ask him. Just sayin' it is possible!

In terms of verifying the parentage of any purported albino alterna, please know that mtDNA analysis won't do the trick, as it ONLY tracks maternal mtDNA. Thus, if mom was an alterna and father was something else (such as ruthveni or a ruthveni mix), the mtDNA will indicate "pure" alterna. In short, such a test is useless for this type of question.

SierraHerps.com

I'm really not saying it is alterna, but my take is that it is an alterna X annulata cross collected in the wild. I've seen the snake and I've seen the offspring. The albino does not look like any of the ruthveni crosses I've seen at shows. The band count looks right as well. You have to go with the info on the collection data. I'm just saying if someone can pop out leucistic pure alterna - it is more probable to have an albino as common as these snakes are. I guess time will tell.