"Paradox" Ice Ghost

[ecreipeoj]

I found this guy/gal this morning. There are a few others in this clutch of Ice Ghost and Lava Het Ice, but this one has the most black.

Lately, I have been wondering why the Ultras and Lavas are not not considered T+ Albinos instead of hypos. This gives me more reason to thing so.

 

[Mike@boakingdom]

Hey Joe, your post has me wondering, just what is an "ultra" and "lava" anyway?

 

[mike panic]

thats going to be a smoking adult thats for sure. Best of luck Joe.

 

[Simon]

Hum....

Well good thing that I got one of your male 'paradox' lava~
that way I can start working things out from them too~

but if think tha they're T+ amels, shouldn't they have red eyes?
Maybe its me being stupid with genetics...I guess its one of those days where you completely forget all the things you learn....

 

[Jason B.]

It could be the picture, but I just don't see all the black your talking about. Nice ice though.

 

[Sasheena]

I see the black. Someone has gone magic marker happy! Beautiful snakes Joe, all of them. Since T+ Albino doesn't exist in mice, I'm not up on the genetics of it. Could you describe T+ albinism as you understand it, and then after relate it to your beauties?!

I wonder, have ANY paradox albinos of ANY species of snake EVER proven out? Seems to me it is an aberrancy that is almost certainly due to the actual formation of the embryo rather than due to some genetic aberrancy. I know enough about the formation of embryos and colors (from mouse genetics) to know that sometimes you get a condition where some dilution gene (like albinism) doesn't work evenly due to incubation or egg aberrancies... you get something odd looking that you would want to reproduce, but never can.

 

[ecreipeoj]

My Ice and Lava Corns are leaking ink! "Leaky Gene"

TYROSINASE POSITIVE ALBINO

Would the Lava Corns and Ultras be more accurately referred to as T+ Albinos? I group the Lava and Ultras together, because they are almost completely lacking black pigment. The Standard Hypo and Sunkissed Hypo have quite a bit of left over black pigment when compared to the Lavas and Ultras. I honestly don’t know and it doesn’t matter if we call them Hypos or T+ Albinos. It won’t change what they are, but it could be an interesting subject to discuss.

I am getting back into Boas again pretty heavily and in the Boa World they have what they call T+ Albinos and Hypos. T+ Boas occur in the Colombian, Argentine and Nicaraguan Boas. Hypo Boas occur in Colombians and Nicaraguan Boas. T+ and Hypo Boas have very different looks. It is very difficult to compare the looks of Boas and Corn Snakes, but the Hypo Boas resemble our Standard Hypo and the T+ Boas resemble our Lava and Ultras in some ways. The Boa World is way behind the Corn Snake World genetically, but both sides could learn from the other.


Here is a description of T+ Albino Nicaraguans that I took from Burke Reptiles Site. I would highly recommend Tom Burke, if anybody happens to be looking for Boas. He is very honest and professional.



The T+ albino, commonly called the caramel albino or lavender albino is our most exciting project. The "T" in T+ refers to the presence of the enzyme TYROSINASE. Tyrosinase is necessary for the production of melanin. The process of creating melanin is fairly simple. The amino acid TYROSINE is converted into DOPA and then into DOPAQUINONE in the presence of TYROSINASE, which is synthesized by the MELANOPHORES. This is a very simplified version of the basis for the terms TYROSINASE POSITIVE (T+) and TYROSINASE NEGATIVE (T-) albinos. In T- albinos, Tyrosinase is NOT produced and the melanophores are unable to synthesize any melanin. This results in an animal which possesses absolutely NO black or brown pigment. In the TYROSINASE POSITIVE (T+) albino, Tyrosinase IS produced but is blocked from gaining access to the melanophore. Simply put, all the ingredients are there, they are just unable to mix. However, a certain amount of mixing does occur in some forms of T+ albinos and they develop varying amounts of melanin as they mature to the point where some individuals, as adults, would be hard to distinguish from normal. This is commonly referred to as the "LEAKY GENE" form of T+. Less common is the "NULL GENE" form of T+ that doesn't experience any "leakage" and NEVER develops any melanin. Our T+'s are of the much rarer, "NULL GENE" type and melanin does not develop as they mature.
Our foundation stock of 2.1 T+ albinos were acquired as imported babies and are now beautiful adults displaying gorgeous reds, pinks, oranges and yellows but NOT ANYTHING THAT COULD BE CONFUSED WITH BLACK. Where black would be present in their tail section has been replaced with a gorgeous lavender color. We have watched them mature into absolutely stunning boas and look to the future with great anticipation as their impact in the boa breeding community becomes reality. We are only limited by our imaginations as we roll the genetic dice and combine the T+ gene with other morphs such as hypos, anery's, ghosts, jungles, arabesques and motleys to see what the results will be!


Here are a couple of photos. The first one is a T+ Albino Colombian that is owned by the Barkers from VPI. I would also highly recommend the Barkers. The second photo is of one of my Hypo Boas.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Sorry, I have been busier than busy lately!

Simons,
I looked at a lot of T+ Albino Boas eyes and it is very hard to see what color their eyes are, but the one that I posted does look to have pink irises. The rest of the eye color seems to match the back ground color of the snake. You may have already brought up the difference between the Hypos and T+.


Sasheena,
I don’t know if anybody has reproduced the “Paradox” in Corns. I only know of Rich Z’s Amel Speckled and my Paradox Ice and Lavas that have black pigment leaking through. I have seen other Corns that have similar markings with the red pigment.

This is the third year in a row that I have Produced some Paradox Ice and Lava Corns, so it would seem like it may be reproducible. I have not bred a Paradox to Paradox yet, but they have been produced by the same parents two years in a row. Incubation temperature has nothing to do with it. All of my Corns are incubated under the same conditions.

I also breed a lot of rodents and play with the genetics a little. I have read what I can find. What would you say the difference would be between a Hypo gene and Dilute gene in snakes if the dilute gene existed? I know how it acts with the Blue Rats for example, but are we calling the same basic type of gene by two different names in the Rodent World and the Corn Snake World?


Mike,
The Ultras and Lava Corns are two of the currently four known non compatible hypo morph genes that have been discovered and proven in Corns. The others are the Standard Type A, Sunkissed Type B, Lava Type C, and Ultra Type D. If you run a search on the forum, you will find plenty of photos of them.

Jason,
I can see the black pretty well on my computer. There are several black smudges on the body and down by the tail, there is quite a bit. I have been experimenting with my camera on the higher settings and some of the close ups are coming out better. I will take some more photos when they shed.

Here is a comparison photo of a Lava Okeetee and Standard Hypo that I have. This Lava Okeetee has the "Lavender" color where the black should be which is referred to in the discription of the T+ Albino Boas. The Standard Hypos that I have can look like this when they hatch, but when they get older, it looks more black.

Opps! Wrong photo. The Sunkissed is in this one too. The Lava is the one with the "Lavender" Color.

 

[Nagah11979]

Hey joe, I saw that you had pics of 2003 paradox ice ghost last year. Do they look the same now as yearlings?

 

[Jason B.]

I do see the black now, After being told where to look. My monitor is not the greatest.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Hey joe, I saw that you had pics of 2003 paradox ice ghost last year. Do they look the same now as yearlings?

I will try to get some up dated photos soon. I have several, but some only have very small amounts of black. It is like somebody touched them in a few places with a magic marker. I have one adult that only has one set of belly checkers that are black, but it sure stands out.

This clutch alone has about 6 "Paradox" in it, but some only have a fleck here and there. They are opaque now, so I will have to wait until they shed to look at them closer.

The nicest one that I have ever seen is Rich's Amel that he calls a Speckled or Freckled. This one has quite a bit of black on it too. I think it will be a love or hate it thing.

I think if they can be reproduced reliably and the black is covering about half of the snake, they would be pretty cool looking. It would be cool if we could breed it into other morphs too. Rich may be able to make a Speckled Butter Motley or something simular.

 

[Sasheena]

Well I saw someone over on Kingsnake.com posted just today that they got a paradox albino corn.... so you aren't the only one hatching them this year!

 

[Sasheena]

I also breed a lot of rodents and play with the genetics a little. I have read what I can find. What would you say the difference would be between a Hypo gene and Dilute gene in snakes if the dilute gene existed? I know how it acts with the Blue Rats for example, but are we calling the same basic type of gene by two different names in the Rodent World and the Corn Snake World?

Well there are a number of dilution type genes among mice. Let me name those first, and then we can see if there is some sort of parallel.

The major is on the C-locus. I have an entire "article" I wrote about this gene found at my mousey website: http://www.geocities.com/mousedomousery/ the link will be at the bottom of the home page.

Among the genes on the C-locus are:
C - Full color
c - full albino (no pigment)
c(e) - An extreme dilution gene
c(ch) - chinchilla gene (eliminates yellow)
c(h) - Produces an acromelanic effect... himalayan and siamese

I am probably forgetting a few c-alleles

Also among the dilution genes is:

p (creates pink eyes and dilutes the coat colors of the mouse)

I'll have to go through my genetics site to remember the genes (it's been a while since I've reviewed) ....

e (creates a yellow coated mouse... no blacks or browns)
d (creates a blue coated mouse ... no yellows or browns)
b (creates a brown coated mouse... no yellows or blacks)

Now the albinism in snakes doesn't really correlate to albinism in mice. c(ch) would be a charcoal corn. c(e) would be a hypo, e would be another type of hypo, and b would be a third type of hypo. p would be a fourth type of hypo the way we are discussing such things, as these all reduce or eliminate the black pigment.

An acromelanic gene doesn't have a strong correlation to a cold blooded creature. This causes pigmentation in the cold extremities of the mouse, but white/albino in the rest of the mouse....

There have been efforts to take a normal spotted (piebald or cow mouse) and get a tri colored mouse. There are a few "legitimate" ways of getting this, but the look that mouse breeders are trying to acheive is something like the paradox albino.... normal colored but a few splotches of other colors. They've achieved this through genetic manipulation, and a few mice are born just with aberrancies. But most often these turn out to NOT be genetic.

As far as the T+ albino, I would say that your lavas meet the definition. BUT Lava is a better name.

I'll have to look through my website later, and then try to see what parallels I can find. This is all just off the top of my head and I must run. Feel free to check out my website... it's old, I haven't updated it in a while, but most/all of the genetics stuff is backed up by research on the jackson labs website.

 

[Simon]

Joe,

I haven't really gotten myself into boas THAT much...but I do have seen a lot of pictures and some actual T+ albino boas. Now if my memory serves me right, I do remember seeing some pink or light pink eyes. So that is actually why it made me thinking when you said that the Lavas and Ultras might be T+ albino genes. But I was really tired yesterday and I couldn't remember what I was thinking...so the short post~

The lavas that I got from you do have SOME not a lot but SOME black pigments on them....but yeah I agree that they're a lot less than the regular and the sunkissed hypo. But that is why I would classify them as hypo type C instead of T+ albinos. Wouldn't a homo albino & T+ albino be just looking like a normal albino since I would suspect thathe albino gene would mask the T+ albino gene. Kind of like the anerys with the lavender sort of thing~~

BUt I am not nearly as experienced as you or seen as many boas as you...so I would like to take more of your advice than listening to mine~

Hope to hear your point of view~~

 

[Melinie]

Lavas, Ultras, and Ice Ghosts.....

Hey Joe!

I've been 'out of the loop' for quite some time, due to my health issues, so I have missed out on these newer discoveries.
I'm doing searches on these colors, and it is explaining a lot about a Hypo that I bought over a year ago that is much redder than the average Hypo, and has next to no black (dark purple) tracings, and LOTS of red on it's belly.
In addition to this, the animal does NOT have the usual saddle markings where it does have tracings. They look like puzzle pieces....

I can't remember where I posted the pictures of it, but the heading was "Gotta Wear Shades". I'll try to find it so you can give me your opinion, if you wouldn't mind.

Thanks,
Melinie!

 

[ecreipeoj]

Try searches for “Transparent” Hypo or “Trans” Hypo or perhaps “Blue” Ice too. I think there is a minimum word length for searches, but you should find some more cool threads to look at. These were some of the previous names that I tried for the Lavas and Ice Ghost that were not excepted very well. A couple of the threads you will find are a little heated, which makes for some interesting reading.

Perhaps the word length for a search should be shortened since shorter is considered better for a morph name, if the minimum word length for a search can be shortened.