Albino X Caramel Albino

Has anyone bred Albino X Caramel Albino? If so what happened when the babies were bred back to each other?

Joe Ellis

Joe,
I've never bred Albino Balls to Caramel Albino Balls, but I have produced what I believe was a "Superbino" or double visual T+T- Burmese. Below are photos of the Caramel Albinos we produced. The first is the one that we believe was the double visual, and the second is what the regular Caramel Albino Burms look like.

Possible T+T- (First Caramel Albino Burmese ever hatched in US.)
http://houseofscaleskc.com/pythons/burmese/20n.jpg

T+
http://houseofscaleskc.com/pythons/burmese/IMG_4695.jpg

It should be pointed out that the parents to these animals were double het for T+ and T- Albino. The original T+ was bred to an Albino female thus producing the parents.

Another interesting fact about these clutches is that for some odd reason there were extremely high ratios of T- Albino offspring. In fact the first year these were produced there were only 12 Caramel Burms produced in out of only 9 clutches, totaling over 300 eggs! Out of the two clutches I hatched out we produced 3 T+ Burmese and over two thirds of the rest of the babies were T-.

So we speculated that either a) the T- gene was some how canceled out by the T+ gene or b) we produced some really poor looking double visual Albinos that were sold off as Albino possible hets. I guess the people who bought them will find out soon enough.

Another point I wanted to make was that the male T+ went through four color changes from the point of hatching to this photo being taken.

The female T+ has never changed appearance. She looks the same today as she did the day she hatched. Just a little bigger.

I was also wondering if someone did this cross,I emailed RDR recently but they had only got sluggs from this pairing.Yesterday I saw an ad on kingsnake with a double het Caramel x Albino cb '06 for sale.So they are around for 4 years,but until now nobody hatched a double visual morph i guess.

Link to the kingsnake ad
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=32&de=757658

Regards Pablo

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...albino+caramel

Very interesting about the burms. I had half expected the ball python albino and caramel to be alleles (different mutations of the same gene) and the double hets to look like caramels but I've seen enough indirect reports that they have been bred together and no one is saying they aren't normal looking so apparently caramel and albino aren't alleles in either species.

I wonder if there could by some sort of synergy going on in the burms such that if a homozygous caramel is even het albino it ends up looking albino? That might explain the high albino rate but would imply that the animal you posted is just a particularly nice looking caramel. Has caramel been crossed into lines that don't even carry albino yet and then with no albino gene present where visual caramels produced at the expected rate?

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Originally Posted by HOFSKC

Another interesting fact about these clutches is that for some odd reason there were extremely high ratios of T- Albino offspring. In fact the first year these were produced there were only 12 Caramel Burms produced in out of only 9 clutches, totaling over 300 eggs! Out of the two clutches I hatched out we produced 3 T+ Burmese and over two thirds of the rest of the babies were T-.

So we speculated that either a) the T- gene was some how canceled out by the T+ gene or b) we produced some really poor looking double visual Albinos that were sold off as Albino possible hets. I guess the people who bought them will find out soon enough.

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Yup indeed, based on my understanding of the enzymes and genes at work here, the folks on the other thread (posted by Kenze) are right and in ANY morph the T- albino will "cancel out" the T+. (Though please understand that I've never actually done these breedings, so this is all based on theory ...)

... But, it makes sense if you think about what the terms mean -- T+ means that the animal has the enzyme tyrosinase -- which is one of the first enzymes in the pathway to making dark melanin -- and can therefore make certain types of melanin that are red or very light brown (pheomelanins, I believe) but NOT the black "eumelanin" that makes dark brown or black pigments. It has a defective enzyme further along the melanin pathway.

But if the animal is T- and lacks tyrosinase, then that first pathway is knocked out, so it doesn't even produce the melanin precursors needed to make pheomelanin OR eumelanin. So, even if it also had the T+ albino gene that knocks out the eumelanin (black) pathway, that wouldn't make a difference in its appearance because it wasn't able to make eumelanin anyway.

So, I think then that all of the T- looking albinos you produced out of the het to het breedings would be either normals (non-hets), het for T+, or even homozygous for T+ -- and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference at all! :( So I think some people probably did get VERY lucky buying "normal" albino PH caramels from you (those caramel albino Burms are smokin', BTW!)

Of course, all that having been said, it still doesn't explain A. Why you got SO few caramels and SO many regular albinos (even taking into account the fact that the double-visuals would look like regular albinos, I think your odds are still a bit off if I'm reading it right) and B. What's going on with your "superbino," since he probably isn't a double-visual.

And, totally off-topic but I can't wait to see what that caramel gene is going to look like crossed into the true hypos ... Caramel glow Burms! O.o

Well the good news is I have the mother of the female Caramel Albino that is laying on her back so I should see eggs soon. This time around I plan to hold back a few of the Albinos to see if they are in fact double visual or not. That only makes sense to do. If that's the case I know where several of the Albinos are at that we sold.

By the way, I agree with the T+Hypo (Caramel Glow Burm) idea. We are going to be pairing up the female T+ this fall with a male Labyrinth to make double het Caramel Labs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HOFSKC

By the way, I agree with the T+Hypo (Caramel Glow Burm) idea. We are going to be pairing up the female T+ this fall with a male Labyrinth to make double het Caramel Labs.

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Nice!! Caramel labs should be phenomenal ... I love the labyrinth pattern but it seems like a lot of them darken up too much as adults, and as pretty as the albino labs are it always seems like the albino colors distract from the lab pattern ... I imagine the caramel coloring should be a perfect fit for it!

That's gotta be a super long-term project but dang I bet it'll be well worth it :gj:

i have a male double het carmel albino and het albino also 50% possible het ghost. Tim Lane from ball room pythons produced him last year. its a definet future project of mine that im pretty excited about:) i havent found anyone selling DH T+T- so unless i can scoop up a female this year its gonna take me awhile:(