Eyes/sight

[Desdemona]

This could go into a few different places... but just some questions about eyes in general.

Are geckos sight based? It seems my girl at home is that way, she really looks at me. Do they use smell at all?

Then to the morph question, a snake eye is any color right? It just means that their eye is not completely solid.

So is the "dragon" looking eye, a long thin pupil in a iris, the natural gecko eye? Is the morphs just based on how much is solid and how much is natural, but not color based?

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

Geckos use both eyesight and scent. They also obviously use other senses for survival as well. They use they scent a lot for marking territory, smelling out prey, and other daily living operations. Like any nocturnal animal their eyesight is critical to their survival since the adaptation for the ability to see in very low light conditions allows them an edge over prey.

Snake eyes will be either black or red. Red meaning the gecko is an albino and Black meaning it is not. Snake eye is an eclipse who does not have a solid color eye. It HAS to be an eclipse in order to be snake eye. The amount of pigmentation in the eye can vary from almost full to pretty much non visible.

The vertical pupil is how their eyes naturally look. If you want to know more about morphs which deal with the eyes I would suggest do a search on here or going to leopardgeckowiki for Eclipse and/or Enigma (both affect the appearance of the eye). Recently a new eye mutation (as far as I know still being proven out and all...but I may be wrong) called Shatter Eye has come out.

As far as how a morph is based...it doesn't matter if its only 5% or 100% eclipse because they both have the exact same gene (eclipse). The color matters because that will mean if it is an albino or not (as I stated earlier).

 

[Desdemona]

Thanks for the reply! I had read the two article on the leopordgeckowiki but I just wanted to clear some things up, your post did just that!!

Now I'm googling shatter eye, hehe.

I love their natural eyes. The morphs make me think of rat eyes, hehe. I had rats as pets for quite a few years.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

No problem. Just so you know they are a couple morphs which may confuse you with eye mutations. Super Snows and Blizzards can have solid pigmented eyes(blizzards can also have snake eyes) without carrying the eclipse gene. So a Super Snow with solid black/red eyes doesn't mean that it has eclipse in it...that's when knowing the genetics behind the geckos will take great importance in proper identification of the animal. Also so you know the different albino strains have slight differences in colors and vein presence in the eyes as well. Lots of reading to do to fully understand the different morphs and the affect on the eyes....but well worth it. Just browse through old posts and try to test yourself by looking on classifieds and the show off section on here and see if you can differentiate some of the eye traits and albino eyes on here.

 

[Desdemona]

If mine is a Blizzard (that is what my photo question revealed by others on the forum) than she is of the natural eye variety. Regardless of her morph, she is natural. She does look like a Blizzard so I think they were right.

Anyways, are there good websites on gentics or are books a better way to go? I know some real basics about genetics, just need to move toward reptiles instead of rodents, hehe.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

Honestly any good information you get about morphs will be on the webs. A lot of the books that have genetics and morphs in them are outdated and will not contain a lot of the morphs out there now. I would seriously just browse websites (site sponsors up top), wiki, threads, and just ask questions whenever you have tried to look it up but just cant find the answer. The genetics will come with time.