I think it’s still worth calculating the odds to weigh what is most likely the situation. Tom's missing on 9 for 9 works out to 1 in 512 odds. Sure it puts doubt on his female being a het but those odds aren't astronomical. He might really have been that 1 in 512 and might produce lots of albinos from that pair next year. But maybe weighing the odds he'll decide to pick up a 2nd albino het female from another source for his albino male as insurance for next breeding season. Your odds of going 0 for 7 with your first albino X het clutch was only 1 in 128.



Odds can also help us figure out if there is something we don’t understand. Like with the boa that went 0 for 38. Those odds are so astronomical that it almost has to be two incompatible types of albino involved or some other unexpected explanation.



Maybe something about snake reproduction we don't know is making the odds per baby not 50/50 like we are assuming. Maybe female snakes tend to clone egg cells before fertilization in such a way that the odds tend to turn out extreme (either high morph if the main original egg cell had the mutation or low morph if it didn't). Or maybe they often reproduce with parthenogenesis making clones of themselves. Even statistical analysis of the gender distribution (determined by the female in snakes) of a large number of clutches could help uncover either of those but as genetics tools become more common paternity tests and comparisons between siblings should be a huge help.



Or are albino mutant sperm dyeing differentially under some condition (hot or cold) or just not swimming as fast? Are some albino's chimeras created when a het or even normal sibling merges early in development with an albino and while the skin came from the albino the reproductive cells might be from the het or even normal (chimeraism is one theory for the paradox albinos).



Lots of thing to try to figure out. I still have faith in the Mendelan genetics but we may be missing a few pieces of the puzzle too.

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