Do Albinos Have Bad Eyesight?

[MasonC2K]

I have heard that they can be light sensitive. But doesn't anyone know if they generally have bad vision?

I have only had my albino so I don't have experience with a normal. But if I want her to take the rat quick I have to wave it in her face. If I just lay it down it will take her forever to find it.

So just curious if this is a normal boa thing, an albino thing, or is she just "special."

Thanks.

[bcr229]

They pick up on movement. It's also true of my retics - sometimes they will strike a feeder so hard it gets knocked off the tongs. Now, I am not reaching into the enclosure, even with tongs, to try to grab the feeder and offer it again; I just close the door and let the snake find it. Sometimes it takes them a while; I've even had a few use it as a pillow or crawl over it before realizing that it's food.

[JodanOrNoDan]

I have normal albinos and lavenders. Both appear to have consistently worse vision than "normal". Food needs to be hot or they miss. The lavenders seem to be better than the normal ones.

That said I have a pastel and a highway that I believe are worse than any of my albinos.

All of this is anecdotal though. I have not figured out a way that is safe for the snake to do a real experiment yet.

[richardhind1972]

I’ve got 3albino boas, an albino who’s 10 an albino jungle who’s 7 and sunglow is 2.5yrs and none of them have feeding problems-most off them go by smell if Im Defrosting food in the snake room half of mine are at the glass windscreen wiping,
Most of my boas tend to wait a mo and watch what you do , you can see them heavy breathing /chest raising up and down and goes even faster before they strike,very rarely misses, I do have one that will only drop feed with the light off
I’ve not noticed a problem yet with any of there eye sight


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[redshepherd]

I didn't personally notice any different in my albino vs. the other snakes, but the albino is the only one who very consistently skips meals if I try to offer more than once a month. LOL

[tttaylorrr]

I didn't personally notice any different in my albino vs. the other snakes, but the albino is the only one who very consistently skips meals if I try to offer more than once a month. LOL

this is pretty much my experience with my 4-year-old albino male lol.

[bcr229]

this is pretty much my experience with my 4-year-old albino male lol.

Wow, my adult albino male would eat weekly if I let him.

[paulh]

Yes, albinos generally have bad vision.

Amelanistic corn snakes and some albino black rat snakes have oculocutaneous albinism type 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1232/

Oculocutaneous albinism type 1 symptoms: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1166/

Herpers call OCA types 1 and 2 tyrosinase negative (T-) albinos. As far as I know, nobody has figured out what causes T+ albinism, except that there are a multitude of genetic causes.

[tttaylorrr]

Wow, my adult albino male would eat weekly if I let him.

my guy goes through the weirdest phases: this past march during his fast he decided to eat 3 weeks in a row (with a strike+coil, practically unheard of for him), and then immediately went back to monthly lol. he's done stuff like this since he hit ~600g. idk what the magic words are but i keep trying to figure them out.