Do Melanistic Leopard Geckos Exist?

[Ccrashca069]

Please check Yes or No. TY.

 

[eyelids]

I voted yes simply because the definition of melanism found on wiki and Lottiz's BV Project...

Melanism is an increased amount of black or nearly black pigmentation (as of skin, feathers, or hair) of an organism, resulting from the presence of melanin.

Now I am not saying people with dark leos should start calling them melanistic because that is likely not the case... However, Lottiz's BV project and that Black Pearl 'morph' seem to be genetic...

Gregg you know I'm VERY optimistic... :main_laugh:

 

[Greyscale_Geckos]

I believe they do exist. Melanism however is very different than hyper-melanism which is a line-bred trait. Hyper-melanistics can only be created by line breeding melanistics.

 

[Ccrashca069]

Thanks Everyone who have voted so far. Keep those votes coming.

 

[paulnj]

I voted know because I read into it as meaning GENETICLY melanistic. I have melanistic geckos, but non are proven genetic as of yet(maybe?)

 

[eyelids]

I read into it as meaning GENETICLY melanistic.

I did as well, but with a different point of view... No wonder I'm often left disappointed... :drunk:

 

[Gregg M]

Looks like it is boiling down to a matter of opinion... So, what would be considered a true melanistic in everyones eyes???

John, looks our silly argument might actually turn into a constructive debate...

Good on us!!!

 

[Ccrashca069]

Well Gregg if anything looks like a good read and its good to know everyones opinion.

 

[Ccrashca069]

I hope to see in around 60 days what my experimental breeding experiment turns up. It involves Melanistic. I voted Yes. Alot of it is because you need to line-breed melanstic to produce Hypermelanistic which in turn is the BV and Black Pearl.

 

[Lottiz]

I feel I have to doubble post here...
I agree, the BV and BP are NOT Melanistic.
The BV's (and BP's) are white on bellies and inside legs. I prefer calling them HYPER melanistic to be correct. If they turn all black in a few years it will be line bred from the look they have today. I don't know if BV is recessive but I know for sure it's not a co-dom morph. And I know a lot of recessive morphs how is line bred.
-True Melanistic Leos doesn't exsist. If they are genetic melanistic they have black eyes, black belly, black all over the body. No markings, no light skin.

 

[GekkoGalaksen]

Does anyone have a melanistic male? Or have seen one? I don´t know how it looks in Conrads (Black Pearl) breedinggroups though. But BW is a female and her hatchlings from last year that is dark, is females. Drexciyas is also a female. Another friend in Sweden also have a couple, one that looks exactly as BW and one that looks simulare to Drexciyas, both are females...
Without males it will be hard to linebreed melanistic, but I can be out in the shadows here, and maybe there is males out there LOL...otherwise, it´s not that bad having a beautiful black female walking around eigther

 

[Lottiz]

Conrad's first one is a male.
our friend in Sweden got one black female. The other one is just a dark normal color I think.
And I don't think that matters. If we find a male looking like Blackie they are not Melanistic anyway.

 

[eyelids]

If they are genetic melanistic they have black eyes, black belly, black all over the body. No markings, no light skin.

I have to disagree... Melanistic Leopards and Jaguars still have their normal pattern although it's difficult to see... I've never seen a leo with a fully* colored belly so maybe they don't produce melanin there...

* There have been ones with paradox spots on their bellies...

 

[Greyscale_Geckos]

-True Melanistic Leos doesn't exsist. If they are genetic melanistic they have black eyes, black belly, black all over the body. No markings, no light skin.

I have to disagree with you there. Hyper-melanism is an exaggerated form of melanism, therefore the BVs and BPs would really be /melanistic/ and not truly /hyper-melanistic/.

However, I think BVs and BPs are hyper-melanistics and not melanistics, melanistics have the lighter brown pigmentation with black markings.

--
Here's my long-winded explanation,

BVs and BPs so far are the darkest types of leopard geckos, and therefore have the most melanin. This means that by all standards they are actually considered more of hyper-melanistic instead of just plain melanistic.

If you compare the BVs and BPs to say Drexciya's female, my male, and all other "darker" leos you could find you would notice that they all have varying degrees of melanin.

For example: BVs and BPs would the very darkest, then Drexciya's female would be dark, but lighter then the BVs and BPs, and then my male and other "dark--but not thaaat dark" leos would be put more towards last because although they have melanin that makes them darker than the average leo, they still don't have enough to even compare to BVs and BPs.

Personally I would draw the lines for "melanistic" and "hyper-melanistic" as follows:

Melanistic: Leos that are darker than the average colors of others, these display the brownish-black coloring instead of the black/grey-like coloring. They still retain their patterning and it is clearly visible.

Hyper-melanistic- These display the black/grey-like coloring, or they display the black/brown coloring, but it appears black instead of appearing definitely brown. These animals have less patterning visible than melanistics because they have a /larger/ amount of melanin.

Another thing...

Melanistics cannot be line-bred to produce more melanistics, melanistics can only be line-bred to produce hyper-melanistics. Melanistics themselves are what some might call a fluke or incident in nature, but if you breed two melanistics together you open up the doors for creating something that is hyper-melanistic because of the combination of the two parent's melanistic genes.

Genetically the possibilities of creating hyper-melanistics are /not/ slim. You are guaranteed to hatch more than one baby with at least the same amount of pigment as one of the parents or more than the parents. Breeding a melanistic to a non-melanistic however decreases these chances... You are more likely to receive hatchlings with a normal amount of pigmentation or with less melanistic pigmentation then the parents.

I've done a fair bit of research...

The project that I am going to start soon works the same way. Take a male with darker than average pigmentation (some might call him a melanistic, but I'm not sure if he's dark enough to be considered so on my own standards, because I'm picky) and breed him to a female with say, a more reduced amount of melanin (say, an albino for example?). From this pair you are at least guaranteed one melanistic. Whaaat? How can that be? It would work the exact same way if you bred the melanistic to anything else. Eventually you are going to get that dark baby.

You can breed that dark baby back to the father (if it is female), or if you manage to get two dark siblings, breed them to each other. You will produce more babies with more melanin then you did with the mel and non-mel.

Keep line-breed again either the mother or father to a darker offspring. Outcrossing the offspring to another melanistic or hyper-melanistic would be a good idea at some point.

But, genetically and theoretically speaking you should get hyper-melanistics. Hyper-melanistics are genetically proven in that sense, while melanistics are not. However, I'm sure that if you go that far into a project you'll be able to prove even melanistics genetic on some level. People often forget that genetics includes genotype and phenotype distinction... Believe me, in the case of melanistics and hyper-melanistics that could be a very important thing.

--

So, in conclusion...

If we're talking about genotypes: melanistics can't be proven. Phenotypes: they can be. Hyper-melanistics can be proven if line-bred, but if they are simply a random fluke that has more melanin than a melanistic, then they can't unless bred to another melanistic or hyper-melanistic.

 

[GroovyGeckos.com]

To clear things up. "Melanistic" is usually used for short of Hyper Melanistic, but they are the exact same thing. We call the opposite Hypo-Melanistic, or just Hypo. There are normal Leopard Geckos, there are Hypo Melanistics, and there are Hyper Melanistics. Just saying melanistic, refers to the Hyper Melanistics. There really is no inbetween.

With that said, darker than normal Leopard Geckos can be Melanistic. There are no set rules IMO, that they have to be genetic. It is a fact, that there are some darker than normal Leos out there. So as far as outwardly appearance goes, yes there are some Melanistics. I do not know if they "have" to be genetic... It could be like height in humans, which is controlled by increasing/decreasing genes. Something we might all(wrongly) call linebred, which is actually genetic.

We know there are more than one line of Hypos, but we still call them Hypos, even the linebred ones. I wonder why Hyper Melanistics would be any different. I say this because there are both linebred and "dominant" Hypos.

Anyway, there have been some very dark Leos "popping up". Some of them have been posted here recently, and some have come out of Mack Snow lines. So far, I have hatched a very dark Mack Snow from a dark Mack Snow female I have, and looks like it might be reproducable.

 

[Lottiz]

Ok, Hannah, I can buy that. Alex Hue is working om a mack snow melanistic project to take all brownish/yellowish color away. Can his project bring a true melanistic? maybe by mack super snow melanistic?

Edit; We post the same minute, Dan. I didn't know you work with mack melanistic too

 

[Greyscale_Geckos]

As for Alex Hue's project...

I'm sure almost anything is possible. Yellowness is a huge factor is snows already though, it might take him a lot of time before he can produce something that has no traces of yellowness.

Also, even if he did, he would still have to prove that the future generations wouldn't have yellow either.

So it really just depends on how thorough and dependable the genetics are.

edit: fixed typo

 

[GroovyGeckos.com]

Yes, by accident. I hatched one that got darker and darker as she grew, and then she produced an even darker baby. I will try to get picture of the little one soon. This is the mother though. She looks a little darker in this pic, than in person. Just so you know.

 

[Lottiz]

Yes, she is darker then normal.

I feel my english is to bad to enjoy your discussion here. I understand you, but I can't express my thoughts in the way I want to... It's very interesting reading anyway

/L

 

[Ccrashca069]

I don't see what the coloring of belly's have to do with anything. The only lizard I have seen so far is a western fence lizard common name Blue-belly and it has blue on its belly but the rest of the underside is white.

Marcia has identified a male I have (Clyde) as a melanistic.

This is making an awesome read. Please continue to vote and put your input here.