i have seen paradox albinos in a multitude of pythons and boa species, and in all cases but one it has never proven to be inheritable.

The one exeption is in the albino kenyan sand boas.

I personally think its likely a form of chimerism. Its the only way I can find to explain the results. and as was pointed out , if that is the case then there is no way to know wich one of the embryos tissue makes up the reproductive organs.

One bit of evidence that supports chimerism is that these paradox animals always occur from either Het/Het or Homo/Het breedings. They never occur in albino/albino breedings as all the embryos would be albino and we would not be able to detect the chimera.

Another probelem with chimeras is that the two embyos are not always the same sex. This opens the possibility of hermaphrodite pythons.

I personally would not buy hets that come form a paradox animal for these reasons.


Just look at he high frequency of twinning and bi-cephalism in snakes, at least compared to other species.

Chimerism may be much more common in snakes than we believe, the breding of albino and other mutant animals simply allows us to see whats going on.

Nick


Ca c'est un beau resume...