Odd Hatchling.....What is it???

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Originally Posted by kingpin

The female is a CB normal she is a 2007 that i bought from a young man. the parents i can't locate.

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Kingpin, can you post some pics of the mother for the ones who requested them?

I would bet the white on the second one will come off after the first shed. I have seen a lot of babies hatch out with white patches like that but they are gone after they shed. The second one is pretty crazy though.

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Originally Posted by adamjeffery

first one is a kick @zz snake. the second one with the white spot will lose it within a shed or two.
adam jeffery

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Originally Posted by J.Vandegrift

I would bet the white on the second one will come off after the first shed. I have seen a lot of babies hatch out with white patches like that but they are gone after they shed. The second one is pretty crazy though.

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The small area of white on the otherwise normal looking sibling did come off with the first shed...

My guess is that it is a "paradox," and my theory on the paradox is as follows.

It is important to realize that, for many "recessive" traits, homozygosity for the mutant allele is NOT a pre-requisite for phenotypic expression. The lack of any normal allele is.

To give an example, a snake actually would theoretically not have to be homozygous for the mutant albino allele to appear albino. It simply has to have no normal allele at that locus. So, a snake could be visually albino if it is homozygous albino (call it a-a, if you want), OR if it is "hemizygous" for the mutant allele -- meaning that it has one copy of the mutant allele on one chromosome, and no corresponding allele at all on the other chromosome. (This is, incidentally, the reason that sex-linked [X-linked] recessive traits are much more common in mammalian males than mammalian females -- because in the male, the recessive mutation is "running unopposed," so to speak.)

My theory is that many paradoxes arise when, very early in development, one cell line suffers a mutation that renders the one normal copy of the allele null, or deletes it entirely. So, the white-appearing patches (I believe) are genotypically different from the lesser-appearing patches, and have a genotype that is "hemizygous" for the lesser gene -- that is, they contain only one copy of the lesser gene and NO normal gene (but not two copies of the lesser gene).

Alternately, I think it's possible that one cell line suffered a mutation to the one "normal" copy of the allele, rendering it mutated as well and leaving that cell line with no normal copy of the gene to produce normal pigment (the white cell line is "lesser / mutant" in genotype).

I suspect that many "paradoxes" are either one or the other of the above (a loss of function mutation or a deletion of the one remaining normal allele in one cell line of a heterozygous animal, resulting in a mosaic). I have read accounts of paradox albinos being produced from het x normal breedings, and I have also read a few accounts of paradox albinos proving out as genetically "het albino," both of which support this idea IMO.

That's just a theory though, of course ... I know nothing about the "eclipse" morph, which looks terribly awesome and promising, so maybe your friend has stumbled on an "eclipse" gene ..? I don't know -- regardless, it's an awesome looking animal and a keeper for sure!

Here are some pics of the mom breeding the Lesser sire, on her eggs and another by herself. These are the only pics my friend has of her at this time.

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...62987077_n.jpg

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...31248025_n.jpg

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...27931721_n.jpg