Question: Axolotl Colours

[axolotlgirl]

Hello All!

My first post and it's probably something really stupid but I'll ask anyway! If you don't ask you don't get! lol

I received approx. 200 axolotl eggs about a year ago there was a mixture of white and brown eggs from a few different females I believe. They hatched successful between 23rd March and 3rd April 2010. I expected that I would get a variety of colours from the axolotls that hatched.

They are now about 9 months old and are all variants of a kind of white colour. Some are white with clear/red eyes (albino I assume), some are white with brown eyes and some of these ones have slight black speckling to them, then I have some which are like a golden shimmery looking colour. I haven't found anything conclusive stating at what age they have they 'adult' colour, I seen pics of brown babies but also read that they don't get their colour til 6 months to a year. I was really hoping that some of mine would be a brown colour but have I just ended up with alot of white variants? I love them either colour but really wanted some white and some brown.

My next question is if my axolotls were to breed would there be any chance of me getting any brown axolotls?

Thank you for your time and I apologise if I'm being really thick!

 

[Kaysie]

Yes, white with red eyes are albino, and white with dark eyes (and sometimes 'freckles') are Leucistic. The gold are probably golden albinos (these have red eyes) or light wildtypes (these have dark eyes). It would be great to see a picture of this type!

If they're not all brown by the time they're an inch or two, they'll never be all brown. If you bred one of the leucistics with one of the albinos, you might get a wildtype out of the mix. You can always offer some of yours up for trade with others.

This is a good question!

 

[axolotlgirl]

Thanks for the response Kaysie, I've been searching all over the internet trying to figure this out! You've been very helpful. I'll get some recent pics of them to post.