Interesting locked up pair of easterns

[ConcinusMan]

The snow easterns that are currently in the hobby look the way they do because they are Schuett albino

Maybe. I keep thinking that their dirty coloration is in the same pattern as the melanistics and so could be that color because of the genes from the melanistic side but we don't really know for sure, now do we?

I don't like calling them snows myself.

I agree. Afterall, it's pretty self-explainitory why snakes are called "snow" and it sure as heck isn't because they are the color of light coffee.

all one must do is breed a different type of albino into the melanistics. Or breed a melanin-lacking albino into an anerythristic morph.

Well there you have it. Aren't most snows produced by combining albino with anery or axanthic? If that's all it takes, then why aren't there already clean snow easterns, ones that fit with the label "snow" ?? Are there no anery or axanthic easterns? Why must one insist on using melanistic to make a snow? Seems contradictory.

..I'd put money on that any day. Since the florida strain lacks melanin completely.

Ahh... but the melanistic is just the opposite, now isn't it? It not only does not lack melanin, but there's something going on with those that causes an overabundance of melanin, so how can you be so sure that combining a melanistic with an albino that completely lacks melanin will do the trick? Seems rather "iffy" to me. I don't think anyone knows for sure exactly what will happen and that's why I mentioned the star trek thing.

Yeah right Eddie, it's hard to say if the dirty in the Schuett snow is due to the Schuett being T+ or the melanistic effects, or both.

Exactly. "To boldly go where no snake has..." oh, nevermind.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Maybe. I keep thinking that their dirty coloration is in the same pattern as the melanistics and so could be that color because of the genes from the melanistic side but we don't really know for sure, now do we?

I am not exactly sure if I read that right but...I think I get it. I will say this... a "snow" as we call them IS a melanistic.. whether it's black, or chocolate colored, or pure snow white... it still is a melanistic even if not visually so... it is expressing the "melanistic" form to the best of it's body's ability. The genotype is fully melanistic, the phenotype is not... because it's impossible due to the schuett albino influence. Schuett overrides the melanism and inhibits (but does NOT prevent it, as would a t negative albino) the actual melanin production, but we still see the full pattern effect from the melanistic, right down to the little whitish spotting on the neck. What this tells us is that melanistic in eastern garter snakes is not JUST a color mutation, it's a pattern mutation as well... because when stripped of melanin which would normally hide additional patterning, there is NO checkered pattern hiding underneath all that black. This is different from some other albino black things (well if that ain't an oxymoron!) where the animal still retains it's pattern, but the black "overlaps" it, hides it, and only when the black is stripped away by some albino or hypo gene you can see this is the case.

what we see when we look at these dirty snows is two genes that are clashing and are both being expressed.... But since albino is a "defect" that inhibits or completely prevents melanin production (depending on the strain) the melanism cannot fully express itself as far as black pigmentation goes... but the "pattern", or lack thereof, is expressed exactly the same as a typical melanistic. The strain of albino gene will always be the more dominating and prominent gene because it limits production of pigments at a cellular level... therefore it sets the bar as to how much darkness a snake can have... or if it can have any at all. The melanistic gene merely increases the amount of black pigment the snake would have and how/where that black is distributed.

When we breed two normal snakes that are het for both melanistic and albino, and babies are born.... what do we naturally say? We say that we got x amount of albinos.... y amount which are snows. We do not say that we got x amount of melanistics, y amount which are albinos... we could if we wanted to and we would be correct, but we don't because the albino always takes a bigger chunk of the cake and is the biggest deciding factor in a snake's phenotype... because MELANIN, and how much of it there is (or isn't), and where it is distributed, will change an animal's look more than any other pigment change. I hope this is making a lick of sense...

It is safe to say when we look at a dirty snow, we are seeing that combination of Schuett allowing some darkness to be present, and the melanistic wanting so badly to express a LOT of black. Both the albino gene and the melanistic gene affect the same pigment... melanin. If it were a different strain of albino that is totally amelanistic... there would be no dirt in the snow! Because amelanism dictates that NO melanin can be produced. The snakes would be born a light whitish pink color(of course, depending on the strain, some may be yellower, or pinker, or whiter) with no pattern...with creepy totally clear eyes and some extra white to their chins.