Leucistic pure breeds?

[nzaxie]

I got given a bunch of eggs from a freind who has 2 Leucistic adults. I raised just over 200 of them and they all turned out to be Leucistic - is that weird or fairly common? I personally have not seen it myself. Quite amazing really ( well for me anyway ).

 

[Kaysie]

Since leucistic adults are recessive for a gene that causes melanophore migration off the neural crest (d/d), all their offpsring would also be leucistic, as they can only inherit the gene d from either parent (as opposed to D, which is the gene carried by wildtype and other normal cell-migrated animals).

 

[Jennewt]

I believe that the offspring from two leucistics could include some true albinos, in addition to leucistics. For this to happen, both parents would need to be d/d and A/a. But in most cases, I would expect all offspring to be leucistics.

 

[John]

"True albinos", Jen? d/d a/a is a leucistic albino - a white animal with pink eyes. If anything is a true albino, it would be D/- a/a (a golden albino). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you wrote (sorry).

I think a better way of putting this is that by default all of your offspring would be leucistic. Even if the parents carried something else that could modify this, making a leucistic albino, or a leucistic melanoid, for example, most of the offspring would still be standard leucistics.

 

[michael]

For some reason in axolotls albino generally means gold with pink eyes. In most other animals when one talks about albinos they mean white with pink eyes. To avoid confusion (in my mind) I usually just describe my animals by phenotype. I call them white albino or gold albino. After all one definition of albino is lacking normal coloration. A similar confusing thing happened with corn snakes. The first "albinos" were amelanistic. The old timers think of amelanistic (pink) corns as albinos. Others think of white with pink eyes as albinos.

When we start describing axolotls by genotypes I'm sure it clarifies things in some peoples minds. For me it just confuses things. I just call mine white albino, gold albino, leucistic, melanoid, and wild type. Their is a lot of variation within each of those types. At one time I knew the genotypes of some of my axolotls but it all popped out of my head. I'm pretty much a purist with breeding in other amphibians but like to mix up the axolotls and see what pops out.

 

[nzaxie]

Thanks everyone - my Q seems to have been answered

Sort of stired up a storm at the same time

I guess because I have breed Leucistic with Melanoid / wild type in the past because I enjoy the aesthetics more that I have not experienced this personally until now. Genetics - a very facinating topic, and very confusing ( well to me anyway ) at the same time. Still looking for my harlequin though , oh well better go breed raise another batch or two in eager anticipation

Keep up the good work :artist: