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albinos
- Thread starter lilernie
- Start date
WildEyeReptiles
New member
Often times they do, but its not necessarily an absolute.
Besides, a noctournal species wouldn't have as big an issue with sensitivity to sunlight as a big mammal that likes to walk around in direct sunlight. That's why cave-dwelling species are often albino or even completely transparent: the color of their skin is irrelevant to their daily life due to the lack of light.
However, it has been observed (but not scientifically proven) that an unusually high number of morphs in snakes have other birth defects, such as missing eyes (certain boa morphs), bulging eyes (leucistic Tx rat snakes), unusually high susceptibility to respiratory infections (some albino burmese strains), and more. These are likely not caused directly by the morph genetics, but are likley just traits that the founding stock carried in addition to the morph genes, and when they were line bred to isolate the morph genes, the defects were isolated as well and passed on to all future generations. These kinds of problems can be tempered by outcrossing, but once it is there it is very difficult to remove the problem entirely.
In my opinion, a snake born without eyes should not be bred, in order to avoid perpetuating such a harmful defect. But people breed them anyway, because they are morphs and they are valuable with or without their eyes. With other defects it is more difficult, because things like susceptibility to RIs may not ever be noticed by someone with good husbandry practices, but the offspring they sell may fail to thrive because the people they sell them to keep them too cool or too dry, or whatever. A trait that takes a long time to show up may not appear until after you've already sold 3 or 4 season's worth of clutches, and by that point it's too late.
ryanm
However, it has been observed (but not scientifically proven) that an unusually high number of morphs in snakes have other birth defects, such as missing eyes (certain boa morphs), bulging eyes (leucistic Tx rat snakes), unusually high susceptibility to respiratory infections (some albino burmese strains), and more. These are likely not caused directly by the morph genetics, but are likley just traits that the founding stock carried in addition to the morph genes, and when they were line bred to isolate the morph genes, the defects were isolated as well and passed on to all future generations. These kinds of problems can be tempered by outcrossing, but once it is there it is very difficult to remove the problem entirely.
In my opinion, a snake born without eyes should not be bred, in order to avoid perpetuating such a harmful defect. But people breed them anyway, because they are morphs and they are valuable with or without their eyes. With other defects it is more difficult, because things like susceptibility to RIs may not ever be noticed by someone with good husbandry practices, but the offspring they sell may fail to thrive because the people they sell them to keep them too cool or too dry, or whatever. A trait that takes a long time to show up may not appear until after you've already sold 3 or 4 season's worth of clutches, and by that point it's too late.
ryanm
I don't think any real studies have been done, but unless there is an actual defect (other than the lack of melanin), they may have is a higher *susceptibility* to those problems, but that needn't be a problem for a captive reptile. In the wild albinos usually don't last very long, either because they are shunned by the social group (if they are social), or because they become easy targets for predators since they can't blend in. It is the rare exception that lives in the wild. In captivity, though, there's no reason they can't live long, healthy lives as long as they don't carry some other abnormality (other than albinism) that causes problems.
ryanm
ryanm