Eclipse Question

So I have a hatchling who's eyes looked solid black when she hatched, had the white nose and feet, but the pattern seemed a little weird for an eclipse.

Well now that hatchling is older, and I'm still confused. I'm PRETTY sure she is an eclipse, but her eyes are definitely not solid anymore. There appears to be very little black in them at all. She still has the white nose and feet, but her pattern still appears strange to me for an eclipse.

Pairing: Rainwater albino eclipse (totally solid black eyes) x super hypo tang het eclipse

Let me know what you think.

Also, if I choose to breed her in the future, does she have a higher likelihood of producing more eclipses with very little black in the eyes (if she in indeed eclipse)?

Also worth mentioning, an older hatchling from the same pair also started with solid black eyes and now has snake eyes (but is still obviously eclipse, and has a pattern to match it)

I agree that the eyes don't look eclipse to me. I have heard of hatchlings starting out with snake eyes and then having the snake look disappear, but that has never happened with my geckos. It's not unusual with my hatchlings who are product of het eclipses for it to be hard for me to tell whether or not they're eclipses at first because they're so small. The eye looks a lot like the eyes of my non-eclipses that I wasn't sure of initially.

Aliza

Hmm, so what of the white nose?

Here is one more with the flash on for good measure.

Not a clue. Maybe it's a former snake eye that lost the snake look.

Aliza

Okay.. So what do I consider this animal genetically? Eclipse or het eclipse? Or is there no way to tell without test breeding?

I honestly believe that could be eclipse. The first picture i could kinda see it but this last picture I can definitely tell the eclipse from the pupil breaking foward to the rest of the eye and its also opening up a bit in the upper left portion of the pupil.
I could be wrong, but thats what i'm seeing.
I usually wait a little bit when I have a hatchling to tell if its eclipse or not just to see how the eye developes more.

I feel like she could be an eclipse as well, but I'm unsure. I've never heard of an eclipse losing its eclipse eyes. Does that happen? I would assume that if a hatchling shows the eclipse traits (white nose, black eyes) from the beginning, it would still be genetically an eclipse even if it doesn't look it? If I do have such an eclipse, is the tendency to lose the strait with age inherited by the offspring?

Even when she hatched I was unsure. She and her clutchmate hatched at the same time. Her clutchmate I could easily tell was not eclipse, with the regular greenish eyes and bright tangerine. This one I swear had solid black eyes and the white nose was definitely there (still is), but she had super dark, bold (darker and bolder than a normal hatchling) bands and that didn't seem very eclipse-ish to me, so I've been so confused. Now those black eyes are fading out, although they still look more grey than a normal hatchling's eyes.

I've trying to decide which hatchlings I want to hold back, but am waiting to see how they develop. This one is the one I was most strongly considering not holding back, mostly because she didn't inherit much tang. But I like how she is developing. She isn't super exciting looking, but I like her contrast. I was waiting to see how she developed. Perhaps I should officially cross this one off my holdback options to reduce the chance of producing more eclipses that are difficult to ID. I told a friend that if I would give her one of my non-holdbacks, so maybe it should be this one in case the difficult to identify, fading eclipse traits are inheritable.

Here are pictures of all the hatchlings (only 3 of them, had some incubation issues because this is my first season)
http://geckoforums.net/f124-show-off-your-leos/104815.htm

The first one is her clutchmate, definitely not eclipse (het eclipse), the second one is her her with her super dark bands, and the third one is the older hatchling (2 months older) who is eclipse (although her solid black eyes changed to snake eyes as she aged, 3 months old now) and has a pattern and coloring I would expect of an eclipse.
The nose poking out of the egg is this hatchling's nose, and you can clearly see that it is white.

I plan to make a thread asking opinions of which I should hold back (as soon as I have updated pictures of all of them) anyways. I'm just not all that experienced and since this is my first season, I'm just ecstatic that I got some babies and want to keep all of them, haha.

I know none of them are super amazing, but everyone has to start somwhere. =) I want to keep one, at least, because they are all either eclipse or het eclipse and are all het rainwater albino, so I could produce some typhoons next season with one of these girls. I plan to really build tang, but it's hard for me to decide which one has the best tang (probably not the one in question) because of the way eclipse washes out color. Obviously the non-eclipse one is the most tangy, but she is not eclipse, so of course she would be brightest.

Some eclipses i can tell straight off the bat from hatching, but others I wait on because the eyes do look solid right away. I'm not sure if that is an inherited trait of starting dark/solid and going to less pigment or not.

As far as what to hold back, you'll have to decide which direction you want to take with your breeding project. Are you going to a certain color you've seen in your leos, or a certain pattern. Always produce what you would like to keep, because if you can't sell them, then that is what you'll be doing.

Hmm, well I guess the hatchling in question I will give to my friend. I am not looking to produce eclipses that fade like that, so I will not breed that one.

I want to work on good tang typhoons for now. That is my first project. I also like to have varying patterns (of course I am after the pattnernless stripe for typhoons, but sometimes you don't get that so some tang jungle or striped rainwater eclipses would be good too). If I get some varying patterns, I can do a little line breeding to make the patterns higher quality. I particularly like jungles.

I agree that you should only produce what you want to keep, which is why I'm considering carefully which hatchling to use to start my typhoon project next season. All of my geckos were obtained through reliable breeders and all have the traits I want to work on, so I am trying to produce only what I want to keep. =) I am well prepared for breeding.