Why is this one an enigma? Maybe?

[Kimyoonmi]

So I bought a male leopard gecko a while back, Shekar. (I name my geckos after scientists based on the regionality they come from, usually herpetologists.)

He looks like this:



Kinda hard to see, but I bred him to 2 other female leopard geckos, and He's a mild tangerine, carrot tail, super hypo...

(Also super horny, but fixated mostly on one gecko)


I bred him to her... Kiran (another Indian Scientist name)

She's clearly, clearly a normal. I mean look at her.

This is their daughter:


?.? Is that an enigma I see? Her tail... the spots aren't even.

The thing is that Shekar bred to another female (also a superhypo, maybe super yellow, ), and they produced a different daughter who has something like enigma syndrome, but she's visually not an enigma.

I don't know what Shekar's parentage is, though. I bought him on Morph market, but the breeder didn't disclose it...

But I read up on enigma genetics, and this isn't how the gene is supposed to theoretically work??

So does anyone know why this could be? Is the enigma gene really unpredictable and the gene is classed wrong in the papers I read? Or did I just get one time lucky?

Shekar has some weird genes, though... 'cause visually, not a tangerine, but some of his offspring, visually really look like tangerines... as in clearly so. And some are clearly carrot tails, while others don't look like they got it.

I'm trying to figure out why on this one with this daughter because it makes no sense to me. Enigma isn't recessive, is it? I read it wasn't a recessive gene. And I'm 100% sure my records are right.

 

[acpart]

To the best of my knowledge the enigma gene is dominant and the newly hatched enigma has some blotches instead of just bands. The tail markings in the daughter in your picture isn't that uncommon for other super hypo geckos and may indicate some stripe genetics (did she hatch with unbroken tail bands?). There have been reports from people who claim they have bred enigmas without the syndrome and claims that no enigma gecko will be symptom free. There are also accounts from people who have enigma crosses (I can only guess that what they mean is that one parent is an enigma but the offspring in question is not visually an enigma so presumably didn't inherit the enigma gene) who have shown symptoms. It's also possible for a non-enigma gecko to have some neurological problems which would not technically be "enigma syndrome". So I imagine that if none of your gecko hatchlings hatch with blotches instead of bands and this is the only one with symptoms, it may be something else.

Aliza