This is a picture I took just now after watering her. She’s a lavender albino and that’s it as far as I’m aware. This is the only scale she has that’s brown and it either just showed up or I haven’t seen it before. She’s a very unpredictable snake and doesn’t like being handled so this was taken with her in her enclosure. I did touch it and it feels like a normal scale, she’s not displaying any unusual behavior either. No excess saliva/bubbling, no stargazing, her breathing sounds fine. She’s eating like a champ. I have no idea what this is and all of her other scales look normal, no discoloration. Am I just being paranoid?
Edit: Because I know people are going to ask and I should have added it originally. I haven’t changed substrate, it’s cypress. Her humidity is stable and so is her temperature. I haven’t changed anything recently. She was a rescue type of situation, no mites, no scale rot, just very underweight and a bit dehydrated when I got her. She’s doing a lot better now but I can’t help being worried.
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I’d definitely say you’re just being paranoid in this case, looks like a freckle/single scale pigment variance to me.
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@noodlehaus Thank you, I’d honestly rather be paranoid over nothing than be paranoid and have something actually be wrong lol. Do lavenders usually get single pigmented scales like that?
I know they technically don’t because they’re albinos, I guess I’m just not sure how it happened
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Sometimes reptiles just like to do weird things. In this case your girl just looks to have a paradox spot. A small freckle of dark color on an albino.
It’s not common but it does happen.
I currently have one paradox ball python and she’s a Blue Eyed Lucy… With 3 gold splotches. No idea why.
It could have been a damaged scale that just grew back in funny as well.
No real way of knowing the why, but I wouldn’t worry.
The last idea that popped for me is are you 100% certain on her morph? Banana and coral glows can sometimes be very pale and they will get some spots as they age. If she’s a super they tend to be very pale and they don’t always develop as many spots.
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The paranoia makes you a better keeper, embrace it, haha! As Christina mentioned, not common, but it happens. Snakes of all species can have single pigmented scales, whole splotches of paradoxing, and many other color and pattern quirks you wouldn’t expect. Nature doesn’t always follow the rules.
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I am, mostly, she looks very much like a traditional lavender albino. Albeit she’s a bit pale for a lavender I think? The person who originally got her from the breeder said that he specifically got a lavender without any other genes. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if she had something else going on.
The more yellow of the two is the male lavender I have, the paler one is the female that has the brown scale
The spot on her head is old and she had it when I got her, I’m not sure what that’s from either but it’s healed over
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That’s good to know, I asked the person I got her from and it sounds like she’s always had it which is relieving. The paranoia definitely helps with being a better keeper, maybe not so much with my blood pressure though lol.
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Being albino or leucistic doesn’t keep them from getting randomly pigmented scales as they age.
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