Are Blizzards a true leucistic?

[marula]

really nice! have you got some recent pics of them for see now the colour?

 

[eyelids]

Wow....that's cool looking! I wonder how much that's going to change as it grows.

I sure hope it stays like that! I'm going to have a nice Mack Snow het Blizzard group for next season and I'd like to produce some like it. At the moment I have what looks like 1.3 MSHB 50% het Bell and however many my Eclipse Blizzard gives me. I'm hoping to get a male SS Blizzard from Steve and I'll pair him with 2 oh the possible MSDHs, my Snake Eyed Blizzard and Eclipse Blizzard. Hopefully the two Macks I use are just het Blizzard because I want to hatch a SSBBB!

Anyways back on topic... :main_yes:

 

[eyelids]

really nice! have you got some recent pics of them for see now the colour?

They are Steve Sykes' so you'd have to ask him.

 

[IMacBevan]

So, I pulled all my research that I used for my lecture on color morphology in reptiles and amphibians and found the following definitions:

"Leucisism - Leucistic reptiles are completely lacking in all pigmentation and usually appear completely white. Older individuals often develop dark smudgy coloration, possibly through the same process which adds dark pigmentation to tyrosinase positive albinos"
- from VMSHerp.com.

I don't necessarily concur with their statement regarding T+ amels, my research indicates something else.

"Leucisism, also caused by an autosomal recessive gene mutation, is an inheritable defect affecting all chromatophores. Leucistic animals lack functional malanophores and xanthophores, and posess minimal iridophores. Leucistic individuals are solid white, with no pattern, except for the eyes, which are dark blue or black. Dark pigmentation is sometimes found about the body of leucistic animals, but again, melanophores are non-functional in such individuals."
- unfortunately, for some reason I didn't notate where this source was from.

These are the primary definitions that I use to quantify blizzards as leucistics.

Ian

 

[okapi]

LOL, You're certainly right that Tremper always seems to have something up his sleeve.

OK....Here's MY theory for the RAPTORS/APTORS. Kind of a "chicken and the egg" scenario. I PERSONALLY feel he happened upon RAPTORS first, said something along the lines of "CHA-CHING...a new morph! It needs a cool name....something bold, like RAPTOR. But wait, I should make RAPTOR mean something." Thus the creation of a very awkward acronym. Then, probably at the same time, he realised that the RAPTORS didn't always have red eyes while simultaneously, being the marketing genius he is, decided to release the APTOR to make as much money as he could BEFORE announcing the RAPTOR to make even more money.

Conspiracy theorist, eat your heart out!

That didn't really help the topic! LOL I could have it wrong (I sorta doubt it)....it's possible he crossed a redstripe and reverse stripe (maybe het Tremper), and came up with the APTOR (albino PRS) then crossed an eclipse wild into the mix to create the RAPTORS. No matter how he created them/ happened upon them, I would put money on him naming the RAPTOR first and releasing the APTOR first to make more money.

While I have no doubt in my mind that RT is a genious like that and uses confusion and names to generate more sales, I dont believe that he discovered the Raptors first. On his web site he has a page where he tells what he is working on for the future, and in one section of that page he talks about a goal to produce brightly colored patternless albinos:

Patternless Hypo Orange (=tangerine) Giant Albinos......this has been a goal of mine since 1998. I've been improving it each season and this year I should have albinos with bodies that are entirely bright orange with good amounts of orange on the head and tail, as well. I may let some out in 2004. = The A.P.T.O.R. debuted in November 2004.

I do agree with you over the name though, I believe that calling them Aptors was an after thought. I do believe him in his book when he says he hatched out the very first Aptor one year, which was a male, and the next year that male produced 70 baby Aptors, 6 of which had solid red eyes. I believe thats the point where he decided to change the name from Patternless Hypo Orange (=tangerine) Giant Albinos to something else. He seems to love acronyms, so im sure he toyed around with different combinations until he settled on "Raptor" and so it would only make sense to name the non-red eyed ones aptors. He released the aptors first like you said to keep the raptors back for one more year to make his money the first year, then the next year let the world know about his raptors. this kept him in the limelight for two years in a row for producing 2 morphs back to back. A genious marketing plan.

As for the blizzard debate, im not sure which side im on

 

[Jayyoung]

I dunno I thought Leucism just meant reduced pigmentation.

 

[Jayyoung]

Did the voices tell you that?

I agree with the definition. reduced pigmentation.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Here's a long-winded difinition of Leucism from dictionary.com:

Leucism is a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation in animals.

Leucism is a general term for the phenotype resulting from defects in pigment cell differentiation and/or migration from the neural crest to skin, hair or feathers during development. This results in either the entire surface (if all pigment cells fail to develop) or patches of body surface (if only a subset are defective) having a lack of cells capable of making pigment.

Since all pigment cell-types differentiate from the same multipotent precursor cell-type, leucism can cause the reduction in all types of pigment. This is in contrast to albinism, for which leucism is often mistaken. Albinism results in the reduction of melanin production only, though the melanocyte (or melanophore) is still present. Thus in species that have other pigment cell-types, for example xanthophores, albinos will not be entirely white instead displaying a pale yellow colour.

More common than a complete absence of pigment cells is localized or incomplete hypopigmentation, resulting in irregular patches of white on an animal that otherwise has normal colouring and patterning. This partial leucism is known as a "pied" or "piebald" effect; and the ratio of white to normal-coloured skin can vary considerably not only between generations, but between different offspring from the same parents, and even between members of the same litter. This is notable in horses, the urban crow and the ball python but is also found in many other species. In contrast, albinism always affects the entire animal.

A further difference between albinism and leucism is in eye colour. Due to the lack of melanin production in both the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and iris, albinos typically have red eyes due to the underlying blood vessels showing through. In contrast, leucistic animals have normally coloured eyes. This is because the melanocytes of the RPE are not derived from the neural crest, instead an outpouching of the neural tube generates the optic cup which, in turn, forms the retina. As these cells are from an independent developmental origin, they are typically unaffected by the genetic cause of leucism.

 

[skmcwilliams]

A little off topic, but how does the black eye blizzard work? I mean I got a female blizzard that is a part of my "midnight" project. She has solid black eyes but her parentage I don't know. She had 8 babies, I bred her her to a normal eye midnight male last year and 3 of them have straight black eyes. Does that safely mean genetically the black eyes is being passed down by her. Also just showing off my favorite "midnight" stud, he is the founder in my "midnight" group. His offsrping weren't that great but their offspring are turning out to be interesting.

 

[Gazz]

I think that blizzard is the closeist we have to leucistic as of yet but it not a true leucistic.True leucistic no matter how much you out breed to other morphs the color should always stay true (clean white/pink with blue eyes).Best example of this i think is the leucistic texas rat snake been around a while and now there are other morphs that it been bred with and it's still a sharpe clean cut snake morph that hasn't been polluted in color.
But till that day you'll have to settle for this bred in the uk not sure if there are others out there ?.It's a very nice mack super snow blizzard the picture is how it hatch and now.Coz of the super snow part it a very clean cut whiter than white blizzard step in the right way but we still need the blue eyes more so coz it will just be very cool.

 

[nevinm]

gazz, i do agree with what you said, they're not accually it, but they are the closest we have. leucistic can have regular or black eyes. i do have to say this thoughi dont think that you can compair a leopard geckos to, too meny other animals. mainly because the loes colors can be changed from then day there egg is laid till the day they die. snaks can change a slight bit in shades and tints, but they can't change as much as the leos.

nevin

 

[giantkeeper]

Those are just Patternless. As far as morphs you got Patternless Albinos and Banana Blizzards. There hasn't been a true leucistic leo produced yet. It'll be cool when one finally does appear though.

I agree with Michael...

 

[Ian S.]

It's funny this got bumped up. After seeing Alby's post I was going to bump this thread.
Come on people.... After seeing the awesome enigma blizzards and enigma blazings how can you deny that blizzards are leucistic. Neither the dominant or co-dom / inc-dom, (snows) not even the beautiful super form can produce working melanaphores in blizzards. Nothing can. (aside from random paradoxing seen in both albinos and leucies) Blizzards are text book leucies.