Eublepharis macularius fasciolatus - Take two.

[Albey]

I know there is already a thread on Eublepharis macularius fasciolatus but this is different information and I thought it should be in the Morphs and Genetics Forum. In 2002 Ben Siegel Reptiles was offering a small amount of F2 Eublepharis macularius fasciolatus that he had obtained from a breeder in Europe. I contacted Ben and he told me that the best ones looked a lot like my Line Bred Snows. I thought it would be a good idea to breed some of the fasciolatus line into my Line Bred Snows to strengthen the bloodline. He told me all he had available were Female’s (which is what I wanted), so I asked him to pick out one of the nicest ones and send it out to me. When it arrived it was about 13 grams and looked like a juvenile Snow. Once it grew a bit more I checked it’s sex and found out that it was in fact a Male. I contacted Ben to see if he had any more because I really wanted a Female to breed my best Male Line Bred Snow to. I wasn’t interested in breeding any of my really nice Snow Females to the Male fasciolatus at that time. He did not have any more Females available. I was disappointed that there were no Females available but at least having a Male I could produce many more of them.

There was one thing about the fasciolatus Male though; I couldn’t get over how much he looked like the original Line Bred Snow’s that A1 Reptiles started with. It wasn’t as white in coloration but it looked very similar in body shape (long and kind of thin), had a very long angular head like them, and a very similar tail. Even the spotting on the eyelids is similar. To me it looked just like a pastel version of one. Here is a picture of the original A1 Snow taken from their website so you can see what I mean.:main_robin:

The next picture is of my original Line Bred Snow Male. It was produced by A1 but sold to me by another breeder.

The next two pictures are of my Eublepharis macularius fasciolatus as a sub-adult.

Like I said earlier it is not as white in coloration as the original A1 Line Bred Snow pictured but it looks very similar to my original Line Bred Snow Male.

Here are a couple of current pictures of him. He has lost almost all of the white coloration as he has aged and looks pastel at best. LOL I am sure some people will disagree with me on this but I still feel that the original Line Bred Snows were related to the fasciolatus in some way. The original Snow’s may have been a slightly different mutation but there are just too many similarities for them not to be.

Here is a side shot of his skin.

The last one is a headshot.

So by now you are probably asking yourself, what is he going to do with the fasciolatus Male? Well here you go.

During the 2005 Breeding Season one of my customers Tony Farina asked me if I would breed my fasciolatus Male to an A+ Grade Snow Female that he had purchased from me as sort of a breeding loan. He wanted to breed the offspring into his Line Bred Snows to strengthen the bloodline. I agreed but I wanted to keep both of them here and incubate the eggs myself so I could make sure there were no problems. He agreed to the terms and I bred the two together. The breeding went well and I got many eggs from her. Incubation also went well with absolutely no egg loss. Of the geckos that were produced here (Tony took the Female home after the fourth clutch or so), I kept two Females that we produced and the rest of them went home with Tony. I also thought about breeding the new Females into my Line Bred Snow line but I was very interested in breeding them into the Mack Snow Project to strengthen that bloodline. I don’t have pictures of them as babies but here they are as adults.

In 2006 I bred my finest Mack Super Snow Male to the two Line Bred Snow/fasciolatus cross Females. So far every babies that has hatched is bigger and more robust than any of the Mack Snows, and almost all of them are staying completely white in coloration. Just to make things easy I am going to refer to the Mack Super Snow/Line Bred Snow/fasciolatus cross as Mack Snow/fasciolatus cross.

These two pictures are of the first two Mack Snow/fasciolatus cross that hatched this year. They are already over 23 grams in these pictures and as you can see are just as white in coloration as an A+ grade Line Bred Snow or a Mack Super Snow. One other thing to note is, there is no tail kink like all of the Mack Snows and Super Snows have. COOL

MSFAS06-1

MSFAS06-2

The nest picture is of MSFAS06-3 the third one born. At the time I took the picture it was 16 grams in weight.

Here is another picture of the same gecko with a regular Mack Snow that was born a week and a half earlier. As you can see the Mack Snow/fasciolatus cross is bigger and has much better white coloration.

Now one thing that is interesting to me is that out of about 20 plus Mack Snow/fasciolatus cross that I hatched out none of them are Super Snows. Since so many people myself include have hatched out Super Snows from Super Snow to Line Bred Snows you would think at least one of them would have been one. Maybe the fasciolatus genes cancel out the magic in the Mack genes, or I was just unlucky and didn’t hit the odds. Oh well, they are still pretty cool. :main_thumbsup:

Later,

 

[eyelids]

Fantastic post Albey! The Mack Snow crosses look awesome!

 

[marula]

finally you are my hero
interesting post and really nice geckos...generally who do this kind of crosses don't explain to others with pics the result...is really helpfull for a "newbi" (i don't know the correct way to write this) like me
thanks for inform us about your progression during reserch!

 

[bro paul]

Great thread Albey! I'll have to come up and check those out for myself Those crosses are so white! So fasciolatus are just more white in general?

 

[Ian S.]

Great post! and extra cool babies!!
Have you happened to find that the trait acts dominant, similar to the urban geckos?? The resaon I ask is because they look very similar as well. It makes sense that the dominance would cancel out the co-dom.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Fantastic post, Albey! This is a very interesting spin on what we 'assumed'. Thank you so much for sharing this with us here on GeckoForums.net! (Put me down for a few of these crosses...

 

[bcreptiles]

thats what we call usefull info:main_rolleyes: :main_thumbsup:
great post.
now i've got some things to find out again, and start some projects for next year

 

[preacherman]

Thanks very much for the post, Albey!

 

[nwheat]

Very interesting indeed!! Thanks for the wonderful info!

 

[wsmitty]

Cool post! Based on the pictures you provided I think a fasciolatus-A1 link seems completely plausible. It's neat to see bright healthy hatchlings from fresh blood.

 

[sportbike_rob]

WOW!!!! i love this guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!:main_thumbsup:

 

[Jeanne]

Albey,

This is really fascinating information. I remember when people thought that the Mack Snows may have been a result of crossing Eublepharis to the Fasciolatus (I beleive it was the fasciolatus), I guess this proves that theory wrong.

I am breeding a Male Super Snow to a couple female Line Bred Snows this year to try to increase the White coloration in the Mack Snows. But, I guess you beat me to it...LOL

 

[KelliH]

Excellent post Albey! I love the crosses you have done, they are awesome. Once question though.

there is no tail kink like all of the Mack Snows and Super Snows have

Mack Snows and Super Snows do not normally have tail kinks. I have produced quite a few of them over the past two years and not had any kinked tail issues. Did you mean to say your line bred snows?

 

[steve75]

So the fasciolatus hatch out bigger and grow faster also?
It could be possible that a fasciolatus x super giant breeding could be one key to obtaining the world's largest leopard gecko if that's the case.

Just some interesting thoughts that popped into my head.

I'd love to get my hands on a fasciolatus and do some dabbling like you did Albey. Excellent animals.

 

[Franks_Geckos]

Great Post Albey! The discussion of the genetics behind all of the different Snow morphs is something that interests many of us. Those are great looking babies and the increased white coloration is definitely going to strengthen the appeal of the Macks. When can we expect some of these offspring to be up for sale?

 

[Albey]

Excellent post Albey! I love the crosses you have done, they are awesome. Once question though.



Mack Snows and Super Snows do not normally have tail kinks. I have produced quite a few of them over the past two years and not had any kinked tail issues. Did you mean to say your line bred snows?

No Kelli I am referring to Mack Super Snow’s. Everyone I received from John Mack the very first year he offered them had some degree of kinking. All of the Mack Super Snow’s Alex offered for sale also had some degree of kinking. There was even a thread about it in the short lived Mack Snow site that Alex or someone put up that was by invitation only. You were a member there. It was where we as Mack Owners were supposed to discuss problems or just talk amongst ourselves about the Mack’s. I thought by now it was common knowledge that Mack’s had kinking issues. I didn’t realize we were supposed to still be hiding that.

 

[GroovyGeckos.com]

Good post, Albey!

I havent come across any tail kink issues with the Macks in the last two years as well. My original male has a perfectly normal tail, we outcrossed, and I have not hatched any kink tail Leos, from any of the crosses.

 

[Ian S.]

No Kelli I am referring to Mack Super Snow’s. Everyone I received from John Mack the very first year he offered them had some degree of kinking. All of the Mack Super Snow’s Alex offered for sale also had some degree of kinking. There was even a thread about it in the short lived Mack Snow site that Alex or someone put up that was by invitation only. You were a member there. It was where we as Mack Owners were supposed to discuss problems or just talk amongst ourselves about the Mack’s. I thought by now it was common knowledge that Mack’s had kinking issues. I didn’t realize we were supposed to still be hiding that.

Interesting!! I havn't seen any Mack snows with tail kinks, including your web site, Alex's website, A&M's web site, Gecko's etc.'s, JMG's and a few others working with them. If you look amongst each site with the exception of A&M,only due to the fact they don't have an updated availability page yet, you see many,many pics of macks w/out tail kinks. Nor do any of my macks have any kinks. :main_huh:*Strange*.... this is the first I've heard of it. Maybe you could post some of those discussions here?

 

[Ian S.]

Albey,
LOL... I just re-read my post from last evening and was a bit worried you may take my inquisition as disbelief. Not my intentions. I wasn't "down" enough for an invite to that site. I registered, but whomever deleted my registration, Therefore I have no insite regaurding any discussions there. Just curiousity:main_thumbsup:

 

[trizzypballr]

I just took notice that one of albeys pics is labeled, line bred mack snow? You are able to cross line bred snows and mack snows? or does this mean that you can actually line breed mack snows to produce really white ones?