Erythriphores in ball pythons discussion

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

But if you pushed for red by selective breeding, you should be able to get a high contrast red and white snow, or super high contrast albino within a decade or so, and I haven't seen it attempted other than so called high contrast albinos. Just look at what we've done with selectively breeding normal leopard geckos. We have taken a dull yellow animal and got to the point where the dull yellow is extreme orange. Is it accepted as being able to be done with balls, and just not getting worked on, or do we just not know?

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But I think the problem/hardship lays in the natural saturation of reds in balls isn't that high to begin with.

Also, a snow is an albino and axanthic, two genes that STRIP red coloring. You'd be working against the gene's trying to make it redder. :confused:


There isn't a "proven" gene out there that stripes just black and yellow besides the the toffee ball that VPI is working with.

I think THAT gene could potentially be worked to making a high contrast red animal, but I can't see it being done very well with any morph genes out their now, since almost all of them strip red and yellow, or red and black together.

Now the burgundy is supposedly a proven line, I can see that being worked with, and perhaps crossed into the toffee line to create a fantastically red animal. ;)

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

But I think the problem/hardship lays in the natural saturation of reds in balls isn't that high to begin with.

Also, a snow is an albino and axanthic, two genes that STRIP red coloring. You'd be working against the gene's trying to make it redder. :confused:


There isn't a "proven" gene out there that stripes just black and yellow besides the the toffee ball that VPI is working with.

I think THAT gene could potentially be worked to making a high contrast red animal, but I can't see it being done very well with any morph genes out their now, since almost all of them strip red and yellow, or red and black together.

Now the burgundy is supposedly a proven line, I can see that being worked with, and perhaps crossed into the toffee line to create a fantastically red animal. ;)

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Isn't the Urban Python the only one with a homozygous toffee ball, or does VPI have one too? I guess you are right about amelanism and axanthism stripping red to a degree. I hadn't thought about that. There are obviously ball pythons that appear to have red. Is it, or is it not known if this is from erythriphore? If it's a fact that it is there, no matter how small the quantity, we should be able to selectively breed for it, even without the jump start of using a recessive, red increasing morph.

What's the consensus? Do ball pythons have any erythriphor, or is it not known. I always thought that the consensus was that there were only two pigments involved, which I always questioned.

I am searching for phaeomelanin, in regards to reptiles. So far, I have this...
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/...ion/id/1734677

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Mc1r - Non-mammalian Mc1r

Mc1r has a slightly different function in cold-blooded animals such as fish, amphibians and reptiles. Here α-melanocyte stimulating hormone activation of Mc1r results in the dispersion of eumelanin filled melanosomes throughout the interior of pigment cells (called melanophores). This gives the skin of the animal a darker hue and often occurs in response to changes in mood or environment. Such a physiological color change implicates Mc1r as a key mediator of adaptive cryptic coloration. The role of Asip binding to Mc1r in regulating this adaptation is unclear, however in teleoest fish at least, functional antagonism is provided by melanin concentrating hormone. This signals through its receptor to aggregate the melanosomes towards a small area in the centre of the melanophore, resulting in the animal having a lighter overall appearance. [1] Cephalopods generate a similar, albeit more dramatic, pigmentary effect using muscles to rapidly stretch and relax their pigmented chromatophores. Mc1r does not appear to play a role in the rapid and spectacular colour changes observed in these invertebrates.

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Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2004 Aug;79(3):583-610.Click here to read Links
Individual colour patches as multicomponent signals.
Grether GF, Kolluru GR, Nersissian K.

Department of Organismic Biology, Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606, USA. ggrether@ucla.edu

Colour patches are complex traits, the components of which may evolve independently through a variety of mechanisms. Although usually treated as simple, two-dimensional characters and classified as either structural or pigmentary, in reality colour patches are complicated, three-dimensional structures that often contain multiple pigment types and structural features. The basic dermal chromatophore unit of fishes, reptiles and amphibians consists of three contiguous cell layers. Xanthophores and erythrophores in the outermost layer contain carotenoid and pteridine pigments that absorb short-wave light; iridophores in the middle layer contain crystalline platelets that reflect light back through the xanthophores; and melanophores in the basal layer contain melanins that absorb light across the spectrum. Changes in any one component of a chromatophore unit can drastically alter the reflectance spectrum produced, and for any given adaptive outcome (e.g. an increase in visibility), there may be multiple biochemical or cellular routes that evolution could take, allowing for divergent responses by different populations or species to similar selection regimes. All of the mechanisms of signal evolution that previously have been applied to single ornaments (including whole colour patches) could potentially be applied to the individual components of colour patches. To reach a complete understanding of colour patch evolution, however, it may be necessary to take an explicitly multi-trait approach. Here, we review multiple trait evolution theory and the basic mechanisms of colour production in fishes, reptiles and amphibians, and use a combination of computer simulations and empirical examples to show how multiple trait evolution theory can be applied to the components of single colour patches. This integrative perspective on animal colouration opens up a host of new questions and hypotheses. We offer specific, testable functional hypotheses for the most common pigmentary (carotenoid, pteridine and melanin) and structural components of vertebrate colour patches.

PMID: 15366764 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I found this:

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Erythrism- Having red skin and scales caused by a lack of black pigments (eumelanin), which allows the red pigment (pheomelanin) to dominate the color of the appearance (Allaby, 1991). Abnormal or excessive amount of red coloring (Holmes, 1979). The occurrence of unusual amounts of redness in an individual or population as compared to the normal pattern of the species (Peters, 1964).

Erythrochromism- See erythrism.

Erythrocystic- See erythrism.

Erythrophores- Reddish-purple pigment-bearing cells (Holmes, 1979). Cells containing carotenes or yellow pigment(Bentley, 1982). Xanthophores that appear red (Bechtel, 1985).

Erythrophore- Red chromatophore (Bechtel, 1985).

Eumelanin- A form of melanin that is black or dark brown (Mattison, 1986). Black or brown melanin (Bechtel, 1985). See phaeomelanin.

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on Graziani's website at http://www.grazianireptiles.com/glossary.htm

It looks like erythrophores are xanthophores that have a red or purple appearance. That doesn't get me very far, but it looks like whether or not it is xanthophores or erythrophores causing the browning of axanthics, the technical term should be hypo-xanthic, since no matter what causes it, it's some kind of xanthophore. Back to google...