Haha yea I DO need a mate just like it! She's like a knockoff infernalis

My problem with all of this is that I don't want to call it anything definitve when in fact there is so much overlapping that goes on between red and yellow pigments. Red pigments, erythrophores...are actually a subtype of xanthophores. So actually an axanthic animal can lack more than just yellow. There are also orange colors that are considered yellow xanthophores, and there are other orange colors that are considered erythrophores. But erythrophores ARE xanthophores. Which is why apparently they'd like to call yellow xanthophores "luteophores" as you can see here...

this is why it's not just as simple as "well if they lack red they are anery, and if they lack yellow they are axanthic". It's just a lot more complicated than that and really you DON'T know unless you could see what's going on at the cellular level.

warning, may cause headaches!

Xanthophores - contain two major pigment bodies the pterinosomes containing pteridines and vesicles that contain fats with stored carotenoids. Another class of organelle may exist in which the pteridines are converted to drosopterins and some people have suggested the name drosopterinosome. However, since drosopterins are made from pteridines, this may be a bit of a splitter attitude, and really may not be valid. But it cannot be denied that yellow pteridine rich cells occur within microns of orange or red drosopterin rich cells, so there may be something to the separation. At any rate, xanthophores can be divided into at least two subtypes.



  • Yellow xanthophores - contain organelles called pterinosomes that are pterinidine rich and range from creamy yellow to orange. Since these cells are yellow to yellow orange and the term xanthophore can apply to the red xanthophores as well, there is a good argument to refer to this subtype as luteophores, but that term has yet to catch on.


  • Red xanthophores (erythrophores) - pterinosomes (drosopterinosomes) are rich in drosopterins which range from orange to red and even violet. These cells are more easily seen on histology than their yellow counterparts and can be seen in the pictures at the top of this page.


Hypoerythrism /Hypoerythristic - reduction in the amount of darker orange to red pigments so that the appearance of this color is largely absent except for traces or appears "washed out."

Anerythrism /Anerythristic - lack of production of pigments in the darker orange to red range.

Axanthism /Axanthic - lack of yellow and lighter orange pigments, depending on the point in the pigment cascade, this mutation can also cause corresponding anerythrism since erythric pigments (drosopterins) appear to come from the more yellow pteridines biochemically.

Hypoxanthism / Hypoxanthic - reduction int he amount of yellow or lighter orange pigments so that the appearance of this color is only found in trace amounts or appears "washed out." This may also result in hypoerythrism since the red pigments appear to be made from the yellow pteridines.
Also while we are at it... lets think about what we see called "anerythristic" plains garter snakes. That term has just got to be wrong. You take away red/orange pigments from a plains garter snake and you get a solid black animal with a stripe? They are at the very least, melanistic! If you removed some color from a plains garter snake, you'd end up with a gray washed out snake, but he'd still have a pattern and he wouldn't suddenly end up with 10x the amount of black on his body as a normal counterpart. A melanistic animal does not have to lack a pattern/ stripes. It just needs to have a much higher distribution of black pigment. Which, these snakes do. Even their belly and iris of their eyes is solid jet black, just like other melanistic snakes but NOT like other anerythristic snakes, which have more of a silver iris and still have relatively normal looking bellies, and patterns. Maybe they are melanistic AND anerythristic at the same time, but they are not plain anerythristic. There's more going on than that.