Quote Originally Posted by abcat1993 View Post
Wow, congrats. What are the chances of not having any albinos with a het (proven?) and an albino?
The genetic symbol for albino is c, and non-albino is C.

Cc is a het

cc is an albino

Cc x cc = 50% (chance of) Cc and 50% (chance of) cc

HOWEVER... I have a current theory that perhaps some of the garters that are identified as albinos, are not albinos. Bear with me...

Scott Felzer, for example, has two strains of "albino". Yet, when one strain is bred to the other, non-albinos are produced.

I assume he has identified his two strains as albino because they have red/pink eyes, as well as lighter body color. However, there is another gene that can make red eyes in some animals (such as mice). This gene is called "Dilute".

In a dilute mouse, the eyes are red, and the coat color is lighter than normal, but the mouse is not white.

Dilute is notated d and non-dilute is notated D.

If a dilute garter exists, and were bred to a non-dilute, the results would be like this:

DD x dd = 100% chance Dd (hets).

However, if a dilute (non-albino) were bred to an albino (non-dilute), the results could look like this:

ccDD x CCdd = CcDd 100% chance

And since only the capitalized letter (dominant trait) is visible in the young, all babies would appear to be "normal", but would all be double het.

(Which is what I suspect is happening to Felzer's two "albino" strains, when bred to each other).

Of course, since ODNR thinks I should not be allowed to ever own a plains garter, even though the source is provable as non-Ohio... I guess I'll never get to experiment to see if I can prove my theory!