What morph is my leopard gecko?




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It’s an albino, but we aren’t able to tell what strain it is.

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Thank you! That is good to know. I didn’t know it was even an albino.

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Welcome to the community! Your little guy looks very healthy! What is his name? :thinking::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Thank you very much! Her name is Shadow! She is 18months old.

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I’m sorry to ask what is probably a VERY dumb question, but wouldn’t an albino lack the dark pigment in the tail spots? And the eyes look dark to me, not like the reddish pink eyes I associate with albinism in general?

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I like that name! I have a girl with a spotted head and tail but between that she is all yellow so I named her Pineapple! :blush::lizard:

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Ahhhh! @cmills There is NO dumb question here! We learn from each other by asking questions! And I would like to know myself actually! :thinking:

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Since leopard geckos have multiple pigments, albino will remove 1 of them (melanin), allowing the others to show up. It’s hard to find information on pigmentation on leopard geckos, but red, oranges, and yellows can still show up, creating the brown-ish color. The brown is light since it doesn’t have melanin, so albinos will still show it. In a normal gecko, where black would normally be, there is brown on an albino instead because of the lack of melanin.
I would think that (I’m not sure) on a normal, the black places are where all of the pigments show up. On an albino, the melanin is missing. So the resulting brown is where all of the remaining pigments are combined.

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Oh neat!
So would that make leo albinism more similar to amel or hypo in other morphs, or is that really not a fair genetic comparison?

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Albino and amel similar in the fact that they remove a single pigment, and the result is (usually) the same pattern but missing that pigment. The only difference is that the pigment that is removed is different. I’ve heard that amel is a type of albino, and I’ve heard that it’s not, but it probably depends on the species (since a lot of morph names aren’t scientifically accurate).
I forgot to answer your other question about eyes. The pupils in my albinos are very dark red, almost black. So they appear to be black, but they are a very dark red.

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Very cool, thank you!

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I had also been wondering what exactly amel was, so thank you for shedding light on that! “A” generally means lack of, so I figured lack of melanin, but then I figured that basically meant albino so it was a gray area for me

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This thread is very educational and interesting.

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Thanks! You’re the best!

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