Quote Originally Posted by HOFSKC View Post
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.
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