Questions about RAPTORS

[Stripe13]

Hey all, I had a question about the RAPTOR morph. As I know it, it’s listed as “Red-eye Albino Patternless Tremper Orange” which seems mostly clear however I’ve seen (and have) geckos who are listed as RAPTORS and don’t follow the acronym. I’ll be producing my first clutches this year with my RAPTOR gals and I want to make sure I know as much as I can about this morph!

First up is my girl Osiris. She’s a proven Mack snow RAPTOR. She has very dark red solid eclipse eyes which seems to fit within the RAPTOR definition, as well as looking to have Tremper albino. One issue though is that she doesn’t have a lick of orange on her, and I don’t really see her as “patternless” because of all her spots... why would she be considered a RAPTOR instead of just an eclipse Tremper? Can you classify all eclipse Trempers as RAPTORs? What does it mean if a leo is het RAPTOR (is it just het Tremper and het eclipse?)? If markings aren’t black (but instead a different shade like tan is Osiris’ case) are they considered patternless?

When I think about RAPTORs, I often think of geckos that look a lot like my other girl, Tyche. She’s exactly what I consider a RAPTOR to be. She has no dark spots anywhere, dark red eclipse eyes, and has nice orange highlights. She looks a LOT different than Osiris, but only one gene differentiates them. What are your thoughts? Is it just line bred traits that make them different?

(I’d also love to see pictures of your RAPTORS or RAPTOR combos)

Thank you!

 

[acpart]

You're right that technically a RAPTOR is Tremper albino, eclipse, orange, patternless. That was the original description. However, as you've probably noticed, most people are calling any Tremper albino eclipse leopard gecko a RAPTOR. When I was breeding geckos, I would only call my truly patternless, red eyed orange albino geckos "RAPTOR", but it is what it is. I don't think there's any point hassling people who have expanded the definition (and I'm not saying you are). Your choice is to either decide to call all your Tremper eclipse offspring RAPTOR, or to only use that label for geckos of the original description and to educate your buyers as to what you're doing (which is what I did).

When you say that Osiris is "looking to have some Tremper albino" do you mean that you think she's an albino or that you know she's an albino and you think she's a Tremper? You realize that if you only think she's a tremper and you breed her to a tremper and the offspring aren't albino that you've now created geckos with genes for 2 different strains which gets very difficult to keep straight.
In answer to your question, both of your females show the stripe trait. Osiris has a lot of spots (are you sure she's not a Mack super snow?) and Tyche is a hypo with 10 or fewer spots. Even Tyche isn't exactly the original definition of a RAPTOR because she has spots.

Incidentally, if Osiris is a super snow, she may not be an eclipse at all, since super snows have solid black eyes or solid red eyes if they're albinos whether or not they carry the eclipse gene.

Sorry if I sent more than you asked for!

Aliza

 

[Stripe13]

Thank you so much for your info! I’m definitely thinking about only using the term “RAPTOR” for actual true RAPTORS. It makes a lot more sense to me instead by listing the morphs they actually have/could inherit than using a term that could potentially not represent what they really have.

For saying that Osiris is a Tremper, I am using the fact that she was sold to me as a RAPTOR, which includes the Tremper gene to determine she’s a Tremper. She also has no black pigment on her and solid red eyes, which can show she’s albino. It wouldn’t make much sense on her breeder to list her as a RAPTOR if she was a bell/rainwater albino instead. I’ve made sure not to pair her with any type of albino though as well

I do agree with you though she may be a super Mack snow and not just a Mack snow after looking at some pictures. I’ll have to see what her babies eventually look like and if they all have Mack snow, I’ll definitely be leaning towards that more. I’ll also have to do some testing in that case to see if her babies have eclipse further down the line, especially if her being a super snow is the only thing affecting her eyes.

Thank you so much for your input!

 

[acpart]

I agree that if she was sold to you as a RAPTOR you can safely assume she's a Tremper.

Aliza