I have seen eye mutants, dwarf leopards, and tail kinks. I have heard from several sources that eye mutants are due to a vitamin A deficiency, and a bird supplement called Vionate will provide the right balance, although i have never used Vionate myself. Has anyone used Vionate? I have observed eye mutants seem to come groups (supporting a temporary deficiency problem in the mother that was remedied later in the breeding season). A few years ago the first eight leopards I hatched of the year were all eye mutants (from different females in the same breeding group), but I only hatched a couple more that year out of hundreds of eggs.
The dwarf leopards are cute, and usually catch up in size over time. I have looked inside the eggshells of dwarf hatchlings and found unused yolk, so it appears this may be due to some sort of development problem. I think of them as "premies". The tail kinks definitely appear to be genetic on some level, possibly bahaving as a recessive trait. It seems to be especially common in patternless, or het patternless animals. I always thought it would be neat to do some controlled crosses to figure out how the "tail kink trait" works, but then again I don't want to propagate this "fault"! Regards, Steve www.geckosetc.com --- nathan greenlay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: --------------------------------- julie, >I seem to get dwarf leopards more than anything else. i would agree with this. most non-normal leopards seem to be smaller in general as hatchlings and as adults. >An interesting note, the slight tail kink guys I have kept don't seem to produce any >abnormal babies that I have noticed i have a patternless male leo with a small kink in the tip of his tail. his offspring with two kink-less patternless females are about 50% with kinked tail, 50% without. it seems to be inherited somehow. i would also agree that most of these mutations (such as the tail kink) would arise from genetic inbreeding. no other gecko has been bred to the extent that leopards have, so this does not surprise me. take a look at what a couple centuries of inbreeding has done to the common goldfish...now, there are some hideous mutations!! nathan nathan greenlay www.geocities.com/geckoboy14 --------------------------------- The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* _______________________________________________Global Gecko Associationhttp://www.gekkota.comClassifiedshttp://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgigecko mailing [EMAIL PROTECTED]://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko _______________________________________________ Global Gecko Association http://www.gekkota.com Classifieds http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi gecko mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko
