BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

While I was up at Sarasota helping Ray with his table, I walked around after we got everything set up. I noticed I seen a silver Halmahera when I walked in, but I only got a glimpse of it, so I couldn't tell if it was axanthic or not. Finally went over to it, and seen it had a tiny tinge of yellow on it, and has light brown eyes - NOT axanthic. Walked around a bit more, started talking myself into getting it, and I got it. Definitely an impulse buy, but as long as I can care for it, who cares, right? When I brought it back to the tables, I put it in a tub, and started looking more at it. I noticed it had a silver dusting on the jowl, were the red is supposed to be. Actually noticed there was no red on the animal, besides a tiny hue on the belly. If you know Halmaheras, you know they usually have quite vivid red on their jowls. I have never seen a Halmahera with no red, though I'm sure there are some out there, besides this silver form and axanthics, of course.

All this time, I figured this new "silver" form of Halmahera was just a color variant of Halmahera. Normal Halmaheras come in red, orange, brown, tan, why not a little silver? But what changes my mind of this color form being a "normal" or polymorphic, is the fact of silver dusting on the animal's jowl. On a normal animal, there would be a possibility of red being there or no red being there. Red would not magically change to silver without some type of genetic influence. Or so I would think? I'm no geneticist, so I'm on a wing here.

I think there are three possibilities:

1) This skink is heterozygous for "axanthic". Just like with the axanthic gene in many other reptiles and the hypermelanistic gene in Easterns, there are visual hets. Meaning you will get normal looking babies with influence from the gene it carries. In this case, it would be carrying the axanthic gene, since it is a mostly silver animal, but still has mostly normal eyes and a tinge of red. I would have to breed two of these together to see if I hit a "super form" of axanthic. But in the case I did manage to breed these together and produced true axanthics, it would mean "axanthics" are actually "anery", since the heterozygous version retained only the yellow.

2) This skink is an anery. If I did manage to breed this skink to another one like it, and I did not get a super form, but rather more babies like this, I would have to breed a normal to this form and see what is produced. This would mean the babies would be 100% het for anery (but looked normal), then I could either breed babies together to breed them back to the supposed anery parent. If I get the anery het babies to produce and they produce anery, then it would be a proven mutation, separate from axanthic.

3) I am crazy, and it is nothing more than a normal.

I know it sounds crazy, but I seriously think it is a het for axanthic or something similar. I know nothing about morphs, and actually not a fan of Bluetongue morphs, but it would be cool to see the possibilities of this animal.

Attached are some pictures.





It shed this morning, by the way.

And a disclaimer, I honestly do not care if it is het for axanthic, anery, normal, whatever. I really have no idea, but from what I know and from people that know about genetics that has told me, I do believe it is het for axanthic. Very easily could not be, but I'm going out on a limb to say there is a possibility. I definitely will not refer it as het for whatever, etc., but either as a silver Halmahera or just Halmahera. It will take quite a while to prove this out, considering this is a WC adult. The likelihood of my ever getting babies out of it is pretty slim. But wouldn't hurt to try?

But regardless, welcome the new Halmahera to the hoard. I believe it to be female, but I'm honestly not sure at all. Looks mostly female, but something makes me question..

Well if Axanthic is a simple recessive I guess he's be a "normal".....

Have these guys proven out as co-dom(w/ visual hets), polygenic traits, simple recessive?

But like you said, it's gorgeous and has something unique going on. If not a mutation, he could definitely be line bred into a project. And maybe it is co-dom like the hypermelanistic. Now I'm rambling. Interested in hearing more about the genetics from others.

John

Nice skink regardless. I would have bought it too, not caring about any of those big words.
Best of luck with her, and congratulations on your new addition!

That's the problem, axanthic has a questionable history of being proven. There were snow classic Indonesians produced from a supposed albino x axanthic het babies back in the 90s, but there are no pictures of parents, just the snow and albino. Even then, the axanthic gene may have been on a different allele since they were classic Indonesians and not Halmahera. I have seen pictures of an axanthic/anery classic Indonesian with extremely light, silver eyes. Very different from the Halmaheras that have the very dark, silver eyes.

And all other productions of Axanthics were axanthic x axanthic pairings, both here in America (Merauke intergrades) and in Europe (Halmahera) making more axanthic babies.

I have been told by importers, Indonesian exporters have been focusing a lot on farming axanthic Halmaheras, so it would not surprise me if hets were accidentally exported, too. There are even some Indonesian enthusiasts questioning if the new silver Halmaheras are a result from a normal x axanthic.

Time will tell. I am quite happy with her. She is such a tame skink, too. Rarely even huffs.

Interesting for sure. If you could point me to any info on the previous breedings that you mention, I'd appreciate it.

My personal guess is that Axanthic is recessive. I was told as much when we purchased our two. Also, I equate it to the Anery gene in boas and corn snakes to the Axanthic gene in skinks and ball pythons. I agree with your theory that Axanthic may include the Anery gene. I'm not as well researched outside of boas, do you know of any species that have distinct and separate genes for Anery and Axanthic?
It always seems a species will have one or the other but not both which would make me think they're related.

I've seen a couple of silver phase in person-probably also the one you bought. I think I saw that one at Daytona. I hesitate to give my opinion on the silvers as I'm still pretty new to skinks and I only have the two Axanthic Halmaheras. I will say that in the boa world, we went though a lot of Anery-LOOKING boas. Some turned out to be Anerys, but most were normals. I agree with you about it being highly likely that hets are being imported, too. I would suspect that they're just mixed in with normals.

Another thing about Anery/Axanthic types genes is that their potential and value isn't really realized until they're mixed into designer morphs like snows. Once a few more morphs pop out of the shipments, people will become more interested and start doing more extensive breeding trials. That will allow all of us to have a better understanding of how all of the morphs work. It's possible this is just the beginning. If no new morphs are established, this will slow progress on discovering what these are.

Do you have a post shed pic?

Are visual hets ever apparent with recessive traits? It was my understanding that a visual het was actually a co-dominant type gene where there actually aren't true hets. Theyre either the morph or normal. Like with the hypermel easterns, the codominant animal is the melanistic with the hyper being the super form. A LOT of the ball python morphs are co-dominant. Pastels are a good example. A litter will contain either pastels or totally normal snakes then when two co dominant pastels breed together they produce the super form (super pastels).

It was also my understanding that both the anery and axanthic morphs are always recessive, as it is in other reptiles, with no visual hets. The hets always appear as normal colored animals who carry the gene. Are you thinking this is maybe a new co dominant form of an anery like gene where there might be a super form then?

A lot of breeders in Aus still even refer hypermelanistics as a recessive due to it having basic breeding properties of a recessive, just the heterozygous babies express more black. Obviously it is incomplete dominant, but works along the line of recessive as far as breeding goes. Breeding hets to hets to get the desired morph.

If I'm not mistaken, the axanthic gene in Morelia is also incomplete dominant.

The second photo attached is a picture of her/him post shed. I will get some more tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

I agree with Diana on the hypermels. If all of the hets (melanistics) can be positively visually distinguished from non-hets (normals) and homozygous (hypermel) animals, this trait is co-dominant.
A melanistic animal is still genetically a het just like a het axanthic is. The difference is that with the melanistic trait, you only need one zygote to display the trait and with the axanthic trait, you need two.

Hypermels are definitely Co dominant regardless of what some people may call them. As for the halmahera, it's nice. Real cool animal, and I'd love to hear that it proved out to be something unique one day, just don't get your hopes up. Not many reptiles that are heterozygous for any recessive mutation show any markers. It's not common at all. Grey/silver colored halmaheras have been coming in for years, it's more than likely just natural variance in color due to where they are collected. It's very likely that some of the normal babies that come in with baby axanthics are heterozygous, as it's likely that they could be siblings. 90% of the time they are the red or brownish babies. Of course, all speculation, but if had any interest in producing axanthic halms (which would involve getting them to breed in captivity, which probably won't happen here) I'd be buying groups of normal looking babies that came in with axanthic babies. It would make the most sense that they would be the likely hets. Random silvery adults are more likely to be a locality variance in color. What's the gender on this one?

I know hypermelanistic is incomplete dominant, I was using it as an analogy for when people assume it is recessive because of the basic breeding properties: het hyper x het hyper = hyper, since everyone is assuming axanthic is recessive.

I will have to fact check, but someone told me axanthic in carpets is co-dom/incomplete dominant, so yeah, everything is speculation. I mean, I really don't care if it were or normal or not, it is just the silver dusting on the jowl throwing me off. I couldn't imagine red would be almost complete replaced by grey without the help of some type of genetic mutation. A silver animal with little or no red on the jowl would make me think just a normal. I think I'm conveying that correctly? It is hard to explain via text. It was much easier to discuss it with Ray. Lol.

I go back and forth on gender, but I'm mostly leaning female. It has no bulge, but I don't know if it is cycled to the northern hemisphere or southern, so until I know what cycle he or she is on, I assume female. I bought her originally thinking male because I needed one, but as I started looking, my opinion shifted. I need a male, but an extra female would not hurt.

Post shed photos:

Body:


Silver dusting, instead of red:


The yellow tinge:


Comparison:


Here is further reading about the snow and albino classic Indonesians:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20174
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20573

probably just one of the many natural variants,which is what i think all halms are in essence,but only way to find out either way is breed it and see,and breed it to what ever form of halm as if it is an inhertible trait then down the line you will see it

just because someones put a possable axanchic over another and babies are the same doesnt really tell u much

would be like having lowlands blotcheds and thinking blue mountains forms were some morph,breed 2 blue mountains form together and suprisingly u get a litter of blue mountains

in australia,ive noticed a trend with quite a few want to be morph breeders calling alot of wild type easterns a this or that morph,a couple have bern interested in a couple of my easterns,saying anerys or het somethings

to me there just normals of a highly variable colored animal,end of the day they are eastern,and are just as special with or with out morph status

breed it with your others and see what happens,only ehen they start getting bred consistently will uou trully see what they are capable of producing,and there lies the challenge

somr pretty normal animals csn pop out suprises at times

And I'd be totally fine with it being a normal. I just think it would be fun exploring the possibilities. I don't want to come off as one of those people that think every little variation is a different morph. Or trying to be right, for that matter. Anyone that knows me, knows I much prefer pure natural beauty, though I would love a pair of Axanthics, I think I can honestly say I like the "normal" red beauties much more. Even if they are $80 imports. It is an awesome animal. Like having a wannabe axanthic laying around. At the show, it was very calm and acted like the Blotched: a knot on a log! But after bringing it home and getting it set up, it is quite the little spitfire. It doesn't flee, but stands her ground, mouth gaping.

i think when halms ect start actually being bred,they will throw out some suprises

will be good to see alot of captive breeding in indos