BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Ok guys, I have a new topic for you. Every once in a while a white northern pops up for sale on kingsnake or fauna and they typically get bought before I even realize that ones for sale. The last time though I happened to be on kingsnake when an add was posted and I bought us our second white northern. We have two now, both adults. One, my husband bought from a friend who managed to get his hands one for us. We named her(I think) Lisa. She's a beautiful, sweet skink who is completely comfortable curling up on our children's laps and watching a movie or two. Fairly sure that this one is a female even though she was sold to us as a male. Our second white northern was purchased from Jordan Russell. Sold to us as a female, but it may have turned out to be a male. We named this one Special Ed. He had a bad case of MBD at some point when he was young, as far as I understand it, he was already recovering when Jordan got him. He has a few bent toes, a slight overbite, and a kink in his tail, but is otherwise a wonderful animal. My question is, has anyone here worked with white northern? Has the light pastel color been proven genetic? Or just something funny that pops up randomly? I've seen some whites bred in Australia that are stunning, but completely different than the ones that show up here. I believe both of mine to be different. Lisa has no real black on her, just dark brown where the black would be. She also has allot of pink/orange/ yellow pastel looking highlights. Special Ed is BLACK and white. Deep dark black pattern on a very light body. Pics of the two can be seen here http://m1297.photobucket.com/albums/ADE ... nks?page=1
The pics aren't great, but you can get a good idea of what they look like. Does anyone have any opinions on what they are, or have any experience working with light colored Northerns? Also I've noticed that Lisa is really difficult to keep weight on. I'm not sure if other lighter colored northerns have any weight, or health issues that may make breeding not a great idea. Just basically looking for some info and input on these wonderful animals that we decided to share our lives with. My husband says that Lisa appears to be expressing some form of hypomelanism, but says that not necessarily genetic. I look forward to hearing from all of you, and thanks in advance for your replies.

I have not worked with Northerns, heck, I haven't even bred, but if I'm not mistaking, the white Northerns are line-bred. Took lighter animals, and kept breeding them together. Some breeder in AU, stated in a video. I have read it on another site, but can't remember the URL, SORRY.. If I'm not mistaken, this man is a member on this forum.

http://bluetonguelizard.com.au/episode-1/

"These animals are the result of a long line bred exercise which came to fruition a couple of years ago by John Robert Coward from Darwin. Which means that the code of inheritance that these animals exhibit is quite varied & not so precise as a straight Mendelian trait. I will be offering a litter of these animals for sale during 2012."

http://bluetonguelizard.com.au/hypo-northern/

Interesting. That was my husbands opinion as well. He compared them to super hypo leopard geckos. A line bred hypo and not an actual simple recessive gene mutation. I'm going to try to pair them this afternoon and see how.it goes. I would love to have some light colored babies this season

dakto are u saying that these usa ones are the same as john robert cowards line

from what ive seen of out of aus white lines there mire just a pale form,the aussie form are milky white and dark eyed,a totally different kettle of fish

i believe the aussie trait was found in wild ones originally,a percentage of the litter,theres been no hets produced,either normals or the pale ones,no hets according to john

Richard.C wrote:dakto are u saying that these usa ones are the same as john robert cowards line

I didn't know if she was talking about the White Notherns found in AU, like in the video.. but hers look a lot different than the ones photographed in the URL,so I agree, I say not, but then again, one of the older line-bred skinks could have had more babies that made their way to USA.

Dakota - the original poster is asking if people know if this is genetic or have experience working with these BTS.

From the Advanced Forum Rules:
This forum was created to separate out the scientific, medical, pathological, breeding, environmental, and locality type discussions from the cute skink photos, new owner questions and general banter. We want to ensure that there is a place for both on BTS.net! Everyone can read and contribute to this forum, although our aim is for this to be a more advanced forum... so please, if you don't have anything meaningful to contribute, just read, learn and enjoy. This forum will be monitored carefully and off topic, pointless or unnecessary comments and posts will be removed. All debates and discussions MUST be conducted in a mature, respectful manner.

Our hope is to make this forum a place of learning for all members of BTS.net, free of criticism or know-it-all attitudes. If you do not know the background of the person you wish to respond to, please take the time to learn it before you criticize. Questioning is encouraged, but please realize that experience is very important and cannot necessarily be learned from reading or research – please respect the members with many years of experience or who have been working with many animals and multiple species. Please try to only post information from first hand experience and not what you have read or heard.

You are just adding links without having anything concrete to add to the discussion, you have not working with Northerns let alone white ones and you aren't sure if the links you are providing are even related to the topic of discussion. This is a warning to please read the forum rules and think before you post. The Advanced forum isn't a place for guesses or comments. Thanks.

***Note that I have moved this to the General Forum from the Advanced Forum. Scott***

I'm certainly hoping that it proves out to be something genetic, but if not, its not the end of the world. We paid allot more than I'd like to admit for these little guys, and I'd love to have them pay for themselves at some point, but realistically its only money. Getting to see Special Eds goofy face begging for food each morning is well worth the money spent. I paired them a few hours ago and they completely ignored each other. I'm going to keep trying but its possible that my gender guess was off. We consider ourselves pretty good at gender determination, but its not particularly easy and every once in a while you get an odd ball. My husband bought a wild caught IJ a few years ago with a massive head, that he was sure was a male.... it dropped six babies five weeks later. On the method of inheritance topic, if it proves to be a line bred trait then we have an awesome new progect to keep us busy for the rest of our lives. Although unless its a Dom or co Dom, knowing anything in just one generation will be nearly impossible. So I guess we may have to wait a few generations and hold back allot of babies to get any real idea of what's going genetically.

if u have a pair of them theres no reason why any babies wouldnt be similar in appearence,they may also need a season in your care to get cycling right and in sync with each other,do u have a pic of the pair of them together,might help to sex them,northerns are usually tellable

http://m1297.photobucket.com/albums/ADE ... nks?page=1
Here's a link to a few pics of them. I'm still having trouble uploading photos. There's on pic of them together in there although I don't remember if both heads are visible. If not I can take you a new one. I'd love to hear your opinion on gender. Thanks a bunch

I didn't have time to respond to this earlier, but about 9-10 years ago Matt Turner in Kentucky originated a "white" line of northerns from an original skink that was just very white. From what I remember he found the whitest mate for it that he could, then basically line bred it.

I never paid much attention to the genetics of it, but he was definitely able to produce northerns that were much whiter than a typical northern. Matt decided to get out of most of his skinks a few years ago, and sold off his northerns. The skinks you have now definitely look like they are most likely from this line. I knew who bought some of these skinks at the time, but I can't remember now. I haven't talked to Matt for a long time, and he is probably the one that could give you the most information on these.

If you want to contact him about this, his website is: http://www.selectiveorigins.com/

Also I will tell you that a breeder in Arizona produced a male northern in 2010 that is far whiter than any that I saw of Matt's. I have seen it in person, and it is very unique.

hard to see in the pics,pics are small and cant seem to enlarge them,fromwhat i can see they look in good shape

matt turner,that name rings a bell jeff,didnt he have blotchies to

Yes he had blotched, rugosa and some others as well. Very good guy. I wish he was still around.

Thanks Jeff. I'll definitely get in contact with Matt and see if I can pick his brain. I looked over your website this evening and *darn you have some nice stuff. That red and orange skink on the bottom of your northern page looks familiar. You didn't happen to get it from Christian Kaleta did you? And I'd love to see pics of that white northern produced here in Az if you have any.

And thank you Richard. I'll do my best to get a comparison photo of them side by side tomorrow morning. After some pairings and a side by side view thisafternoon, I'm starting to think that they may both be females.

thought i recognised the name,i didnt think that was his real name though,sorry back on topic now,that little pale one sounds interesting jeff

looking forward to seeing pics valley

I believe you bought that from California breeders union, no?
Here is a link where they talk about the skinks:
http://californiabreedersunion.myshopif ... logs-terms

"Hi Jordan,

This line started with an unusual white female that was produced by Pete Weis. She was bred to the palest male that we could find and the first litter of babies showed varying degrees of white coloration. As they grew, some turned into very white adults and some more of a “high white” normal. A white male baby was then bred back to the original female and other pairs from the litter were bred together. White x white = all white, normal but high white x normal but high white = about 50/50 whites to normals. Based on this, I think it is ultimately a recessive trait but one with “visual hets” in the way of high white normal skinks. The babies are pretty easy to id. The whites are very light at birth and have a lot of soft pastel carmels, pinks, etc. The visual hets are more challenging because they look just like normal sibs until they get some size to them, then they really start showing the white highlights. I am attaching some links to other pics from the project.

http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq18 ... d-1art.jpg

http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq18 ... 08aart.jpg

And attached is another white baby pic for comparison.

Thanks

Matt"

Valley Reptiles wrote:Thanks Jeff. I'll definitely get in contact with Matt and see if I can pick his brain. I looked over your website this evening and *darn you have some nice stuff. That red and orange skink on the bottom of your northern page looks familiar. You didn't happen to get it from Christian Kaleta did you? And I'd love to see pics of that white northern produced here in Az if you have any.

Thanks for the compliment, but no, I have never received a skink from Christian Kaleta.

I took pictures of the white skink I am talking about with my phone in 2011 when it was just over a year old. Unfortunately my phone crashed since then an I lost all the pictures on it. I sent them to a couple people though, so I will ask if either of them still have the pictures.

That skink should be breeding this year, so I am interested to see its babies.

Hi matt, thanks for the info. Yes I got that animal.from CBU. Jordan picked it up from Linda at Switzer Reptiles, who got it from a breeder on the east coast. Jordan purchased him to breed into his whites, but decided that it couldn't be the same gene that was present in his group and decided to part with him.

Jeff, heres the reason I ask about christian. About six months ago we drove him a box of hognose, geckos, king snakes, and a few other things and once we arrived he was very excited to show us five northerns that had been sold to him. Four were VERY nice classic northerns, and one was a beautiful sunset. The issue was that all were skinny and didn't appear to.be in great shape. He had just bought them a few hours before from a breeder who claimed to have bought them all from Andrew Seike. He said that the guy he'd purchased them from had no idea how to care for skinks, and that's why the looked so thin. He offered them to my husband pretty cheap, but he decided to wait a few weeks to see if they had gained any weight before shelling out any money. Sadly christian sold them all before we got back down there again.