Lavender Leopard Geckos
Instead of the usual yellow or tan, the body of a Lavender leopard gecko has a light violet to purple wash. Ask what an animal looks like as an adult before buying based only on juvenile photos because many young geckos lose the colour as they mature.
About the Lavender gene
A wash of purple or violet across the body replaces the usual yellow or tan ground colour of a leopard gecko. This is a line-bred trait instead of one fixed by a single mutation. Because of this, the strength and length of the colour depend heavily on the line an animal comes from. The rarity of the morph makes it attractive to buyers.
Appearance
The base colour ranges from a stronger violet-purple to a pale, silvery lavender. Rather than replacing it, this colour can sit under other patterning like spots or stripes. A Lavender might look quite different from one line to the next because of this. While the colour is usually most vivid in young animals and hatchlings, much of the violet typically fades as the gecko matures. It is often swallowed by emerine, tangerine or yellow pigment coming through underneath. An adult may show only a hint of the colour it carried as a juvenile. Rather than judging the morph from a baby's colouring alone, ask to see the actual parents at full adult size.
Genetics
Lavender is not a single dominant or recessive gene but a polygenic, line-bred trait. Because it does not pass on by simple ratios, a fixed outcome is not reliably produced by two Lavender parents. JMG Reptile produced the first line in 2003. They worked from Normal and Stripe geckos that already carried some lavender colouring and kept the strongest examples over several generations. No super form exists, and no complex or allelic partner is documented. For an animal from Lavender-carrying stock that does not show the colour itself, Pos Lavender is listed alongside Lavender. This trait has turned up in several separate lines with different genetic backgrounds instead of in one strain. It has been bred into combinations with Bell Albino and into named lines like Geckoboa's Purple Head where Lavender was crossed into Tangerine lines. In the hobby, Lavender is also known as Lavender Stripe.