T-Positives?

[Sue Henson]

To anyone's knowledge, has anone produced a T-Positive albino corn snake?

Thanks.

 

[WebSlave]

I have heard rumors, but nothing more, mostly in the form of people asking if I had any myself. In a few instances where I saw photos of possibilities, my opinion was that I was looking at a ruby eyed hypomelanistic. But perhaps our terminology is not accurate nor complete. How far does Hypomelanism go in removing melanin before it becomes Amelanism?

Would a T-positive amelanistic corn look basically identical to a T-negative one? And if there is such a thing, would it necessarily be a good thing?

Lord knows that Hypomelanism is already kicking my butt, so I certainly would not welcome more confusion with multiple lines of Amelanism.

There is a photo of an interesting animal I recently posted over on the CornSnakes.com forums under my own SerpenCo photo gallery. I think I titled it something like "Dark Eyed Amelanistic or Ruby Eyed Hypomelanistic?".

Still not sure what it is, and I may never really know for sure.

 

[Darin Chappell]

In my opinion, it will be very hard to prove that an animal is t-positive until one of two things happens. a) It is bred with regular amels, and it produces normals (double hets), or b) a snake shows up with a partial distribution of amelanism within its own body. Of course, the latter option is preferred, because the first allows for the possibility of breeder's error to enter into the equation.

According to the research that I have done, many t-positive animals have a partial distribution of melanin, so it is albinistic in part and melanisitic elsewhere in the same organism. Rich has a picture of a hypo looking snake with an obvious amel head. The picture is truly incredible! That animal may very well be t-positive, in my opinion.

Rich, I know you're swamped, but sometime in the semi-near future, do you think you could snap a few shots of that particular animal for to see again? I am really curious as to how it is progressing!

 

[kenalotia]

What exactly is a T-positive amel?

Okay, I've heard of T-positive amelanistics before, but never really knew exactly what they were. I'm getting the impression that they're amelanistics who lack melanin because of a different gene than the typical amels. Is that right? Only sometimes they are only amelanistic on parts of their body? It seems to me that that wouldn't really be considered amelanistic, since they do have melanin... but maybe I'm not understanding this right.

So, could someone give a brief explanation of what this really is? Thanks a lot.

Kate

 

[Darin Chappell]

Kate,

Tyrosine is a non-essential amino-acid that is one of the building blocks for the pigment, melanin. Tyrosinase is the enzyme which serves as the starting point for the tyrosine to be activated in an animal.

It is my understanding that all amels (of the "regular" variety) are tyrosinase negative animals, that is they produce no melanin at all. These animals have been called "complete albinos" in years past. Tyrosinase positive animals, however, (once called "partial albinos") are those which produce some melanin, or at the very least, have the genetic capacity to do so.

These animals are trickier to identify than the T- animals, because of the distribution factor of the melanin which may or may not produced in the T+ animal. It is entirely possible for a T+ animal to look identicle to a T- animal. However it is also possible for a T+ animal to have patches (over a minority or a majority of the snake's body) which show melanin in every way that a normal animal would. If it has albinistic patches with melanistic patches it is T+, but if it is totally albinistic, it COULD be either T+ or T-.

So, has anyone every produced a T+ corn? I would think so. Like I said, Rich's snake that appears to be both amelanistic AND hypomelanistic, seems to be T+ by definition. Here's a pic:

It may also be that any piebald or paradox corn is also a "brand" of T+ corn. Who knows?

I think this is great topic for discussion, but I agree with those who have stated that the cornsnake world really doesn't need another confusing genetic issue right now. Bloodred doesn't seem too "out there" for me, but Hypo is going to be a HUGE mess for years to come, I fear!

The following is a site dedicated to the existence of T+ dobermans, so it deals with mamalian issues for the most part. However, it is still a good read on the issue of albinism in general.

http://www.geocities.com/~amazondoc/albinism/

Have fun with this!

 

[WebSlave]

Ruby eyed Hypomelanistic or dark eyed Amelanistic??

 

[Darin Chappell]

Rich,

The borders around the saddles of those snakes, are they white, or are they gray/purple? They look like the latter on my moniter, but that could just be my hardware (screen, or eyes!) playing tricks on me. However, if it is the latter, would that not suggest that these are just extremely light hypos of some sort?

I know you're probably wanting them to be ANYTHING other than another form of hypo D), but that's what they look like to me. What do they really look like in person?

 

[meretseger]

I've read, I think in relation to ball pythons, about the exsistence of a test for tyroinase to prove if an animal is hypo, T+, or T-. I guess a good example of a T+ reptile is the 'albino' Kenyan sand boa, in which the black is replaced not with white but with a color that is greyish to creamish. Okay, I just have to talk about sandboas in every post.
One must remember that even though two strains of albinism are incompatible doesn't mean that one is T+ and one is T-.

Erin B.

 

[meretseger]

As a note, I hope we never produce a morph of snake as f'd up as those albino dobermans.

Erin B.