Will put up better pics later, but i believe i have the ID correct, just confirming. My guess would be a melanistic patternless.
Based on the pictures I think you are right, but better pictures would help. Something that has the whole gecko (head to tail) in focus would help.
This shows what kind of pictures and information would help:
Guide- asking for Sex & Morph ID w/leopard geckos
I did look that over, im not home at the moment so these are what i have, but i will definitely get better pictures when i get home.
He’s definitely cool looking!
If it helps, they looked close to this before they lost their pattern (this is not the same animal, just an example)
In that case, I think it’s safe to say that it’s a Murphy’s Patternless, they will have that pattern and it will fade as they age. Melanistic is just a term used to describe a darker color, it’s not actually a morph, but you can use it to describe the gecko.
Hmm melanism i thought was a genetic trait that could be past on i thought, like albinism?
If i had any intent on breeding leos, it might be worth trying to prove out, but i have to imagine others have done so already.
It’s a polymorphic trait, so if both parents have it, then babies will likely have it, but if one parent has it, the babies will have it to a varying degree.
I had a similar one last month. It was a patternless female that was dark, not as dark as yours, but pretty close. I bought her from someone getting out of leos, so I already sold her, but I didn’t really have an interest in breeding her.
Fair, i know for some animals it is genetic, but looking into it a bit, leos are not among them. Either way still looks good, and technically hyper melanistic is accurate in the sense it is what the animal is, but yes, not a trait that gets passed the same way as the single gene traits like albanism.
Always cool to learn new things leos arent my focus, so i still have a lot to learn
I second all of what @erie-herps said. I also agree with melanistic Patternless.
So just curious; are these older photos than the ones in the initial post? I just ask because I see more pattern here than I do on the ones initially posted. I think he/she looks awesome. I’m slightly jealous that my Murphy’s patternless isn’t this dark coloration. Looks really cool
They are a couple days apart, the patterned ones are newer. They are still young so the pattern is still fading and getting darker.
When you say they, did you get multiple, or just using they since it’s too young to sex currently?
They because i do not know the gender. I do not breed leos currently, and keep the leos i have seperate, so checking for gender hasnt overly mattered.
I’m following up on this post to see what has happened with your Leo’s. These are fascinating to me.
It seems to me that you could breed these to line breed darker and darker.
They remained darkish, but they did lighten up a good amount. Ill see if i can pust update photos when i get home
Thanks! That would be very appreciated!