What exactly is a het albino?

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Originally Posted by sourgirlmx

brings me back to high school biology

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yep...that stuff you were like "why do i need to know this crap? this is stupid"...... :fim:

Basically... there are two het albinos being bred together in this punnett square (Na and Na):

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/130/3...807d74ba_m.jpg

N is the dominant trait (normal BP) and a is the recessive (albino). When two het albinos are bred together, 25% are normal (NN), 50% are heterozygous for albino (Na), and 25% are albino (aa). Theoretically, in a four egg clutch, one would be a normal, two would be hets, and one would be an albino. However, since hets are indistinguishable from normals aside from breeding tests, all three normal looking ball pythons in a four-egg clutch would be labeled as 66% hets. Since you have three normals, and only two of them are hets, each has a 66% chance of being a het. You'd pay more than you'd pay for a normal for a 66% het, but less than a 100% het, so... spend less, take your chances?

All of this information is great. However, one more little tidbit of information. The reason that all Hets (in simple recessive traits) appear as normals, because the wild type phenotype is dominant. Therefore, Hets for recessive traits always appear as wild type animals. Hope that didn't confuse anybody anymore.

This is a Het Albino (in this case 100% het for Albino male)....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ledupMay06.jpg

This is not a Het Albino (in this case a perfectly normal aka wild type female)....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...uirneforum.jpg

Basically hon what these pictures should tell you is you can't tell visually. How I know I have a 100% het for Albino is because we chose to buy him from a very reputable breeder (Adam Wysocki of 8BallPythons) and the snake came with impeccable genetic paperwork. That's always the best guarantee of true genetics.