By Marcial Mendez
Name of Line: Albino
Founding Breeders: Damon Salceies, Trooper Walsh, Marcial Mendez
Founding Animals: VPI / Bushmaster Meraukes, Floyd, Midas, Versace
Characteristics and Traits: As neonates, the differences between normal chondros and albino chondros can be very subtle, and to the untrained eye they can be easily overlooked as “normal”. It is not until the animal begins to mature and undergo ontogenetic color change that the differences in appearance become more apparent.
Generally, there are three traits to look for when identifying an albino chondro:
1) Red pupils
2) Pink / unpigmented tongue
3) A complete lack of black in the pattern
It should also be noted that the “red baby” form of an albino chondro can be a very dark red / maroon. However, even with these dark babies there will be no black in the baby pattern.
As albino chondros mature, they change to a golden yellow color (this seems to be what replaces areas that would typically be green), with varying individual scales and patches of white, orange, and red (the areas are where a “normal” animal would have colors other than green that make up any pattern).
To date, less than 10 individuals are known to have completed their color change, and these have all been either pure locality (Merauke) or one generation removed. The true potential of the albino gene will not be realized until animals crossed with various designer bloodlines survive to maturity.
Brief History: In the late 1990’s, Dave and Tracy Barker of VPI acquired a group of imported Merauke locality animals from Bushmaster Reptiles. VPI bred these animals and produced at least one clutch. Both Damon Salceies and Trooper Walsh acquired offspring from this breeding. Damon received a reverse-trio (two males and one female) and Trooper acquired a single male. Damon raised this trio and bred them in the 2001/2002 breeding season. It was from this breeding that the first known albino (“Floyd”), a male, was produced. Several years later, Trooper bred his VPI Merauke male to one of its offspring to produce the second known albino (“Midas”), also a male.
While Floyd did live to maturity, for reasons that remain unknown (aside from rumors), Damon’s line of albinos stopped with him, and there are few, if any, known descendants from this line still in the hobby. Floyd’s fate remains unknown.
Although Trooper’s albino “Midas” lived to adulthood (7-8 years), he did not produce any offspring. However, Midas’ father (the VPI Merauke) did produce several clutches and, since he was a het albino, all offspring from these clutches are possible het for the albino gene. From one of these clutches in 2001 came “Versace”.
Marcial Mendez had acquired Versace from Trooper prior to Damon producing Floyd; however, knowing the lineage of the animals, as soon as news of Floyd became public, Marcial knew that Versace was a possible het, and he started his own albino project.
Versace, a strong breeder, sired numerous clutches. Marcial held back most of the female offspring from these clutches with the plan to breed them back to Versace. After producing several clutches with no albino offspring, Marcial produced his first albino chondros in 2013, thereby proving Versace as a 100% het. Unfortunately, both of the 2013 albinos were poor feeders, never fully established, and died. Since then, several more albinos from this line have been produced, but unfortunately none have survived to maturity.
As of this writing, Versace is still alive and breeding at the age of 19, and Marcial has held back a sizeable collection of 50% & 66% possible het albinos that are mature and ready to breed. The next several years will be crucial in determining the long-term viability of the albino chondro project. It should also be noted that there are reports on social media of albino animals in Europe, although their origins are unknown.
I really hope we see more of these in more collections eventually.