Please can you help with morph ID

[Michelle]

Hi everyone. I have a hatchling that I would like some advice on. Your help will be greatly appreciated. This little one has very little yellow on it so was wondering what your opinion of morph is. Thanks in advance

After hatching

After first shed

 

[BiKA]

Mack snow.:main_yes:what morph are the parents?

 

[Michelle]

Father is a normal. Here's a pic

Mother is quite fair. She has no black on her at all. She is light yellow and brown. Here's a pic

 

[Michelle]

Here's why this is tricky. In New Zealand there are a limited amount of leo's. Importing has been stopped. Only normals were brought in. At some point there has to be a morph that pops up. I have delt with various morphs when I lived in SA so I am not completely unfamiliar but I have never had a hatchling (here or in SA) with this colouring. Its clutchmate is almost the same in colouring. Look forward to more thoughts.....

 

[BiKA]

either one of the parents has to be a mack snow in order to hatched out mack snow hatchling.Sometime or most of the time,it's difficult to differentiate an adult mack snow to a normal.i have a mack snow that grows up and looks exactly like normal.if you get a super snow hacthling from that pairing,that means both the parents are mack snow.

 

[Michelle]

True one of the parents could be a mack snow. I read that the original Mack Snows were hatched randomly from normals. Am I right?

 

[Michelle]

Bump

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

It looks like a Mack Snow to me. A majority of Mack Snows can be difficult to identify as adults, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched for one of yours to be a Mack Snow. The best way to know for sure is to breed it out next year.

 

[Michelle]

Thanks for that. To my knowledge there are only "normals" and high yellows in NZ so this would be a first for us.

 

[supperl]

Do you know where the parents are from? When were the imports stopped? I mean how long ago the goverment stopped the imports?

As ppl said before, adult macks are sometimes hard to differ from normals so one of your parents could be a mack snow.

You ever had babies from the pair before??? ANy thing like that hatched? Out of how many animals?

I put my money on Mack Snow or something similair like a new Snow Morph if the parents realy never produced a similair one out of maybe 20 babies

Thanks
Thorsten

 

[Michelle]

Hi Thorsten

I am not entirely sure when the importing was stopped but I know that not a huge amount was originally imported and that the breeding from the original stock has been going on for about 3 years. Basically all nNZ leo's are now related in some way. I have a few eggs in the incubator from this pairing. The one in the pic is the second hatchling from this pairing. The cluthmate is very similar (a bit darker) but also lacking in yellow pigment. I will be thrilled if this is infact a new morph for NZ!

 

[supperl]

well if you are lucky you have a mack snow parent easiest is to breed the babies back. Try to get male and female with this colour and breed the parents to them.
As you don´t know which one is the Mack you should try it like I said above this way you should see Mack Super SNows sometime if it is mack snow you could be the only one than with this morph and could get rich haha.

 

[Michelle]

Lol! I am going to keep them and breed them next year as suggested. Thanks!

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

Good luck

 

[Michelle]

Thank you

 

[paulnj]

While it does look like a mack snow, I find it hard to believe that NZ has any due to being closed to import for the most part. I would let it grow a bit more and get images every week or two so we can see the changes that it goes through.

 

[Northstar Herp]

It's not like it's impossible for another Snow morph to pop up distinct from the others... it's happened before.

I guess we'll likely never know, if it's in a closed country.

 

[Michelle]

The original Mack Snows were an unexpected surprise. The sibling is almost exactly the same. We are bound to have new colours pop as we are dealing with a very small gene pool.

 

[Michelle]

Hi everyone. As Paul suggested, it would be best to post pics as this one grows and sheds to see the progression.

Here are the first pics...
After birth

After first shed

Here are some new pics...

After third shed

After fifth shed. The yellow that is coming through is not solid but more intense on the edges of the bands and more faded towards the middle of the bands. Its also more of a lemon yellow than a bright yellow. Sorry my pics are not great!

With its sibling that was the exact same colour (black and white) as he was at birth

Any more thoughts. Does it still look like a Mack Snow?

Just to clarify. I am not claiming to have a Mack Snow parent. I feel that this may be a new Mack Snow line.

 

[paulnj]

I think it's just a "normal" to be honest. Many of the wild caught localities I bred(read subspecies) where that pale and even paler with no mack genes in them.