"Eye Pigment"

SaSobek

SaSobek

Member
R.A.P.T.O.R, Eclipse, Abyssinian, Radar, Typhoon, Snake Eye, Nova, Dreamsickle, B.E.E. Black Hole, Stealth, Super Black Hole, Super Nova, Total Eclipse, Super Raptor,


What do they all mean? What is up with the eye pigment? How dose it work?
Ok first you must understand a few things so we will start with that.
Patterns are the biggest thing that you should learn to understand what is going on.

Banded or “Normal”
Ok first we have to start from the “normal” leopard gecko it is what is called banded.

Aberrant
From breeding these banded geckos eventually you will get “aberrant” pattern geckos. These geckos will just have one or more broken bands.
Aberrant

Albino Aberrants

4 eyed
It was once thought that the 4 eye pattern on the head was some kind of a marker for getting aberrant pattern geckos
On the head you can see the “4 Eyed” pattern. It is basically two light colored spots behind the eyes.

Jungle
When you start breeding the aberrant pattern geckos together you will eventually get what is called a “jungle” pattern.

Albino Jungle

This pattern is should be defined as having a broken neck band along with a high degree of aberrant patterning to the back. The key is the broken neck band.
*Breeding 2 aberrant geckos together dose not always give you a jungle. You can’t look at as a recessive trait.

Stripe
The next step from that is to get the pattern to line up strait. Breeding the jungles together, at some point you will hatch out what is called a stripe. A stripe will be a light color stripe down the back with dark pigment stripes on either side of it.
*There is such a thing as a broken stripe



Note that on an albino it would be the opposite it will be a stripe of color (ranging from white to dark orange) the dark pigment will not be there so it will be an area of lacking pigment.


Mack stripe


There are different colors of stripes as well. Bold stripe, Red stripe and Lavender stripes are just how we classify the color of the dark pigmented part of the flanking stripes. Here are some examples of each.

Bold stripes,


Red stripes,


Lavender stripes



There is such a thing as a broken stripe it would just be classified as a stripe that is broken at some point. It would be really just a jungle, but it is more then just a jungle.
The albino in this photo is a mack termper broken stripe

*Again breeding 2 jungle geckos together dose not always give you a stripe. You can’t look at as a recessive trait.

Reverse Stripe
Breeding Stripes together you can get reverse stripes.
A Reverse Stripe is just that, the color is just the reverse of a stripe. This means a Dark pigment stripe down the back flanked by two light pigment stripes.

Mack snow reverse stripe.


This reverse stripe has broken up into spots.

Again on an albino it is the reverse. It would be a pigmentless stripe down the back flanked by light pigment stripes.



There is such a thing as a broken reverse stripe it would just be classified as the reverse stripe that is broken at some point. It would be really just a jungle, but it is more then just a jungle.

Also again they can be classified as Bold Reverse stripes, Red reverse stripes, and Lavender Reverse stripes.



Reverses stripes are a little more rare then other stripes.
*Again breeding 2 Stripe geckos together dose not always give you a reverse stripe. You can’t look at as a recessive trait.

“Patternless” Stripes.
This is the most confused pattern among new hobbyist.
A “PATTERNLESS” STRIPE IS NOT A MURPHY’S PATTERNLESS.
A Murphy’s patternless is a simple recessive trait it looks like this
Baby

Adult

Albino (rainwater) Murphy’s Patty
Baby

Adult



Now a “Patternless” stripe is the result of crossing a Stripe and a Reverse Stripe together and getting a gecko that is showing both the stripe pattern and the reverse stripe pattern at the same time causing the gecko to look “patternless”.

Baby slight reverse stripe



Adult



*Again not all of the stripe to reverse stripe crossed animals will be “patternless” stripe.
“Patternless” Stripes can have spots on their backs and will usually get them as they age. There is different degrees of how well “Patternless” Stripes look some will look totally patterless and others will have hints of pattern here and there.
 
SaSobek

SaSobek

Member
Eye Pigment
Ok here is where it gets a little weird on us. How dose the eye pigment happen? Well the eye pigment is related to the pattern in a way. But once the eye pigment is expressed it is then acts kind of like a not so simple recessive.

So lets break this down. The first time we saw the eye pigmentation it was for sure the coolest thing in leopard geckos the bad part was how did it happen and how did it work. There was a quest to have the all orange gecko. This is where a few key people came in. First was Ron Tremper of Leopardgecko.com (the godfather of leopard geckos) he was the first to make the Aptor. What the Aptor was, was an albino ‘patternless’ stripe. This geckos was what they were looking for a solid orange gecko. It was not understood how he got it at that point but he had it. From this Aptor breed back to its siblings, was hatched the first R.A.P.T.O.R and a few days later the first Eclipse.

Meanwhile Alberto of A&M Geckos was working on a project where he was crossing his stripe and reverse stripe jungle giants to Red Stripes. From these geckos he was creating these solid orange non albino geckos. He coined them “patternless” stripes because that is the way they looked and they were from a stripe line and didn’t know what else to call them.


Alberto got one of the first R.A.P.T.O.R.s. this is where he start to figure out the genetics of what was going on. The “patternless” stripe babies were split into two breeding groups.
One group of females was breed back to a “patternless” stripe male.
So it was
“patternless” stripe from (albino Reverse stripe X red stripe ) X “patternless” stripe from (albino Reverse stripe X red stripe )

From this cross geckos with pigment in the eyes hatched out.

Group 2 was
“patternless” stripe from (albino Reverse stripe X red stripe ) X R.A.P.T.O.R

This also produced geckos with the eye pigment.

So from these results it was known that the eye pigment was Unlocked from the crossing of these “patternless” stripe geckos.

Proving that the eye pigment was acted recessive
The next step was to see if the eye pigment would pass on to the next generation.
In this breeding a super snow was used. What this did was see two things in the same breeding. One if the eye pigment from the super snow and the eye pigment from the Raptor were the same or different. The cross was done and all of the babies came out snow but no eye pigment. So this meant that the two eye pigments were different and that if the Raptor eye pigment was to pass on it would either have to be recessive or it was something to do with the pattern.
When crossing the (super snow X Raptor) X (super snow X Raptor) geckos were produced that had the eye pigment and they were banded. This meant that it was not just the pattern that had an effect on the eyes. The eye pigment was acting like a recessive trait.
So you can make the eye pigment from scratch by breeding “patternless” stripe X“patternless” stripe
Or by crossing two geckos that are “het” for the eye pigment.
This also means that crossing a “het” for the eye pigment to a “patternless” stripe will also give you the eye pigment.
So there is 3 ways to actually get eye pigment. The best way to look at it is that true “patternless” stripe geckos can always be looked at as “het” for eye pigmentation even though they might not have a parent that is showing the eye pigment. So that is where a lot of the confusion comes in. A lot of people think that is just cut and dry and well it is but not as simple as people think it is.

The other weird thing that happens is eye pigment X eye pigment dose not always give you eye pigment. This is explained by the amount of eye pigment in the eyes. The eye pigment in the eyes can be looked at like this

“All geckos with black eye pigment are eclipses, but not all eclipses have eye pigment.”

*For the sake of confusion in the next part when I say “eye pigment” you can plug in eclipse, raptor, radar, typhoon, ect ect….


And all of you will ask will if it is not showing “eye pigment”, how can you call it “eye pigment”. The reason is that the eye pigment varies in every gecko that is “eye pigment”.
This can range from solid like this raptor

to none at all like this mack eclipse.


If it is a partial it is called a snake eye. Like this one


Ok and here is the big one guys

Abyssinian
“An Abyssinian is just an “Eye Pigmented”gecko, with out the eye pigmented.” It is not its own morph it is a term that is coined to tell what it is.
An Abyssinian is just an “eye pigmented” gecko that is not showing eye pigment but it will act genetically like an “eye pigmented” gecko.
It is called something different to distinguish that it is actually something it is just not showing what it is to the extent of what we are looking for. So its not just a “het” for the “eye pigment” it actually is the “eye pigment”



This type of gecko will also have a lighter then normal color to its eyes the reason for this is because it is lacking the dark pigment in its eyes it is lighter then normal and it is showing the red veins in the eye because the dark pigment is not covering the veins. Its kind of like a paradoxing of the eye if you will. It works that if the eye doesn’t have that “eye pigmentation” it has no pigmentation.

So with these type of geckos again you look at them genetically like an “eye pigmented” gecko. When breeding one of these non “eye pigmented geckos to a “eye pigmented geckos you will get all eye pigmented geckos.

Now wait with that last statement why is it when I cross my “eye pigmented” gecko to my “eye pigmented” gecko. Why do I get non “eye pigmented” geckos? That is because you got one of these geckos that is an “eye pigmented” geckos that is not showing the “eye pigment”

When breeding these non “eye pigmented” geckos. It can be looked at as “eye pigmented” geckos.

When selling these non “eye pigmented” geckos they should be sold as non “ eye pigmented “ just so that there is no confusion.

Eye pigment can fade as well some geckos are born with eye pigment and then it will fade. Usually after 20 grams it stays.

Also there are markers for “eye pigment”. Most “eye pigmantated” geckos will have but not always have the following :
1. A whiter then normal nose. This is where the white pigment will creep up onto the head further then it should.
2. white coming up the legs.
3. a weird spot on the head that is lacking pigment most of the time showing like it is a blueish tint
This is a great gecko to see all 3
 
SaSobek

SaSobek

Member
Eclipse (eye pigment on a non albino)

Snake Eye (eye pigment that is not solid)

Abyssinian ( lack of eye pigment of a gecko that is an “eye pigmented” gecko)


R.A.P.T.O.R (Tremper albino with the eye pigment) these can come in all patterns but a true R.A.P.T.O.R is a “patternless” stripe pattern


Radar (Bell Albino with eye pigment)

Banded and “patternless” radars



Stealth (Mack Snow bell albino enigma with eye pigment)


Typhoon (Rainwater albino with eye pigment)

B.E.E. ( Black Eyed Enigma, Eclipse enigma)

Baby B.E.E. and eclipse

Black Hole ( Mack Snow eclipse enigma)



Nova ( Tremper albino eye pigmented enigma)

Dreamsickle ( Mack snow Tremper albino eye pigmented enigma)


Total Eclipse( Mack super snow eclipse)



Super Black Hole ( Mack super snow eclipse enigma)

Baby super black hole left and baby total eclipse right.



Super Raptor (Mack super snow Tremper albino eye pigmented)



Super Nova ( Mack super snow Tremper albino eye pigmented enigma)














there are also other types of eye pigment that are expressed in other morphs that have nothing to do with the Eclipse type of pigmentation

these morphs are

Blizzards and all combos,

Mack super snow and all combos

Marbled eye


the marbled eye trait has been bred to the "eclipse eye pigmentation" and the results are no eye pigmentation. this concludes that the marble eye trait is one in its own. more on the marble eye trait to come soon.


There are also some other eye pigmentations floating around that might be a different but have to be test bred to see what they really are
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
Great post. Thanks for the effort. Maybe change the title to "pattern morphs and eye pigments" though since so much of it has to do with patterns? Again, nicely done. It's always appreciated when someone takes the time to write a quality post.
 
SaSobek

SaSobek

Member
Rum66runner said:
marble eye is probably a co-dominant gene since both traits are being expresed.
Click to expand...

no the marble eye trait its a proven recessive. I have been working on them for 4 years. there is just something else that is happening with them as well. kind of like a hidden gene if you will.
 
R

Rum66runner

New member
Not wanting to start a fight or anything but co-dominate refers to 2 dominate traits which are both expressed (blended). And to me that's what it looks like. It won't happen every time because say breeding a marble to marble because for it to happen one part of the gene would have to be given from each parents (one dominate trait from one parent and the other dominate trait from the other). This is probably the same thing that is happening with the snake eye just on a different scale.

Pardon my foot in mouth syndrome but I should have asked what have the parents been and what the hatchlings been? If you got 4 generations it would be easy to see what exactly it is.

The reason I say all of this though is if it was recessive breeding a marble to a marble would produce nothing but marble eye offspring as they have no other trait to pass along.
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
Rum66runner said:
Not wanting to start a fight or anything but co-dominate refers to 2 dominate traits which are both expressed (blended). And to me that's what it looks like. It won't happen every time because say breeding a marble to marble because for it to happen one part of the gene would have to be given from each parents (one dominate trait from one parent and the other dominate trait from the other). This is probably the same thing that is happening with the snake eye just on a different scale.

Pardon my foot in mouth syndrome but I should have asked what have the parents been and what the hatchlings been? If you got 4 generations it would be easy to see what exactly it is.

The reason I say all of this though is if it was recessive breeding a marble to a marble would produce nothing but marble eye offspring as they have no other trait to pass along.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that not all traits are as simple to figure as just "recessive" or "co-dominant". Many traits have other "keys" that can activate or deactivate a trait. Look to BP and cornsnake morphs for good examples.
 
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