Other pets (pics and discussions)

[ConcinusMan]

I wanted to share some pics of my scaled babies. I don't yet have a garter, I'm hoping that will change this year (wink wink to anyone expecting garter babies), but here they are. If anyone is familiar with kingsnake morphs could you give your opinion on what color my guy is..his morph has to have a name..not just cali king lol. My three year old god son has named him Chocolate Milk and well that pretty much describes his color.

Looks like a hypomelanistic to me. (If a ca king has pink/red eyes and purple, or white and yellow it's really just an albino, sometimes also called "lavender" Since yours would have been a normal black and white phase, it doesn't quite look purple. If a normally brown and yellow king has reduced melanin (not completely absent) AND somewhat dark eyes, it's hypomelanistic, or "hypomel", meaning, not quite albino, but close. the dark areas will look purple and the eyes dark. It's hard to tell from that photo though.

And that, makes very little sense whatsoever, doesn't it? I'll try to clarify:

We have 2 different "albino" (amelanistic) plains garters. The "Iowa strain " looks like this:

(you can see there are no dark pigments and very pink eyes)


The "nebraska strain" (different gene affects the color. As you can see, there's still color there and the eyes are darker) If you ask me, by definition, is is NOT albino, but is really hypomelanistic. Hypo meaning "reduced" melanin. Think of it as "halfway there" albino.



If your kingsnake completely lacked melanin those grey areas would be pinkish/purplish due to color from blood showing through, and his eyes would be very pink or red. Since the eyes are dark and there is gray there, the technical term would be "hypomelanistic" as opposed to "amelanistic"(albino) and would look more like the following picture. I have found albino kings in the wild (among a group that had just hatched) that also looked like this. The normally dark areas can look pink or more of a purple color:



As far as "morph" names go, the first person to prove the gene and and successfully produce offspring predictably can call them any darn thing he pleases based on overall appearance, not actual biological terms. So for now, I guess yours is "chocolate milk" Scott even produced a morph called "christmas albino". The name may, or may not stick. That's why I prefer to hear the true terms. Hypomelanistic for your snake, Amelanistic (Albino) in the above pic.

[guidofatherof5]

Even though she's not a garter I thought it would relate.
As you might remember I've been blessed to be the caretaker of a blind Fox snake(Elaphe vulpina). She lost her eyes to live food that turned on her. This was a complete failure and fault of the snakes owner.
Tonight I noticed she was finishing a shed so I thought I would assist her.
All she had left was her head. As I pulled the shed off I noticed what appeared to be a eye cap. Apparently when the eye socket healed it retained the ability to still shed. I thought it was pretty cool, so here you go.

[infernalis]

Very interesting Steve.

[guidofatherof5]

Here's my male Hypo bull snake out for some fresh air.


Tonight was ball feeding night. I'm not a big fan of these but they needed a home. They are beautiful and have a great feel.

[lokai99]

Thanks for the info ConcinnusMan. I'm glad I can call him something now. He does have pigmented eyes so I think hypo is pretty descriptive. Thanks also to Steve, i'll tell the boys...and girl that they were a hit.

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, that's what he is. He's a hypomel black and white phase king. Pretty darn cool looking too.

[ConcinusMan]

Some video of 2 of 4 pomeranians. Aren't they the cutest?

[Laura]

Hey guys and girlies, I'm new to the forum today as I bought my first snake yesterday, however here are a couple of pictures of my two cats:

<a href="http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...ent=cloud2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...ets/cloud2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


<a href="http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...ent=wombat.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...ets/wombat.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[ConcinusMan]

Fixed it for ya. ^^^You used the wrong code for this forum.
Welcome.

[infernalis]

Since it would take forever to get it all on here, Links to my existing galleries.

Picture Gallery

Another set





Buck - the monster rat, sire to my feed litters. Hey, pythons gotta eat too.