1-6 of 6 messages
|
Page 1 of 1
|
Albinos in the wild
|
Reply
|
by elapid62 on July 12, 2003
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
How often do people find albinos snakes in the wild ? I have heard of a few albino cottonmouths that were cought in the wild. does anyone know how often they are found ? Thanks
|
|
RE: Albinos in the wild
|
Reply
|
by TomT on July 12, 2003
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
A friend of mine, who for the purposes of this comment shall remain nameless, once told me that one in forty (1:40) animals in the wild(snakes were the topic of the moment) were Heterozygous (carriers) for the amelanism gene. This being said, I have no idea where he came up with that number or if it's anywhere near accurate.
I do know that some species (the more common ones of course) tend to show up as amelanistic animals in the wild. I'd suggest asking around on the genetics forum over at Kingsnake.com to see if anyone will give you a real answer.
TomT
|
|
RE: Albinos in the wild
|
Reply
|
by CFoley on July 15, 2003
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
...There were alot of WC albino monocleds going around in the market for awhile...apparently they werent unbelievable uncommon. However, Im not familiar with the area, and maybe my figure ideas are exaggerating.
|
|
RE: Albinos in the wild
|
Reply
|
Anonymous post on July 16, 2003
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
I know two people who have found wild albino timbers, on more than one occasion.
|
|
RE: Albinos in the wild
|
Reply
|
by Snakeman1982 on July 19, 2003
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
Albinos aren't found in the wild often. Main reasons for this are quite simple. If you are albino you can't hide from predators so you are easily picked off. Even if the animal managed to get away from the predator problem and not get eaten while it became full grown (very rare circumstances) it would probably starve. If you are albino not only can all of the predators see you but so can all of your prey. Hard to sneak up on something to eat when you stand out so badly. So the genes of these wild animals are obviously not being passed on to very many generations.
I don't believe that even heterozygous recessive genes for albinism is as common as 1 in 40 for animals but I could be wrong about that. That would make 1 out of every 6,400 animals in a species an albino. Possibility in some groups (probably quite a few snake species) but much rarer in other animal groups. Last I checked out of the 1.5 million alligators in the world there are currently only about 5 or 6 true albinos, it might have gone up a little in the last few years though.
The albinos etc... everyone sees are pretty much all herpculture creations. A few rare patterns of albinos etc... were taken from the wild and rapidly interbreed so that now half of all you see in captivity are amelanistic burmese pythons, axanthic ball pythons, patternless corn snakes, ect... things that would no longer stand a chance in the wild. In captivity you can see all sorts of weird junk thats been created but mother nature has few natural genetic screw-ups (mutations) occuring in a short time period, which would severly damage a species' survival mechanisms.
I would certainly question anyones claims to finding more than one strange color morph in the wild, especially albinism. It would be very unusual to find an albino period but two or more of the same species in close time periods, yeah right. Little too suspicious for my blood. Sounds like someone is buying things off the shelf and pawning them off for wild caught. That should be a crime, bunch of fakers.
Hope this helps,
Robert C. Jadin
|
|
|
Email Subscription
You are not subscribed to this topic.
Subscribe!
My Subscriptions
Subscriptions Help
Check our help page for help using
, or send questions, comments, or suggestions to the
Manager.
|