Lavender Albino Royal Pythons for sale in the UK
A Lavender Albino looks like a high-contrast albino at hatching. As it grows, its ground turns pale lavender and is set off by deep red eyes and a sharp golden-yellow pattern. Because it is a separate gene from the ordinary Albino, pairing the two gives hets rather than albinos.
- Visuals
- £250
- 1 for sale
- Hets
- £100
- 1 for sale
Lavender Albino royal pythons available now
About the Lavender Albino gene
A royal python (ball python) with two copies of Lavender Albino loses all dark pigment, just as an ordinary albino does, but it turns lavender where an albino is white. Because few other royal python genes provide that colour, keepers buy it for that specific hue and the clean yellow pattern on top of it.
Appearance
The pattern stays the same as a normal royal python's, alien heads included; only the pigment changes. Instead of black and brown, what remains is yellow with rich golden undertones that are sharp and well defined instead of bleeding into the ground colour. With a belly that is normally clean white with little or no marking, the snake has deep red eyes and a head with a golden-yellow to orange crown.
A hatchling looks very like a high-contrast albino and has a brighter orange patch on the head. The lavender comes with age. As the snake grows, its white ground turns a translucent pale lavender pink, and the contrast holds into adulthood.
Genetics
Lavender Albino is a recessive gene. Because it is its own gene and not a line of the ordinary Albino, breeding a Lavender Albino to an Albino gives babies that are all double hets, with neither gene showing. Animals sold as Pos Het Lavender Albino, 50% Het Lavender Albino, 66% Het Lavender Albino or Het Lavender Albino look like normal royal pythons. It belongs to no allelic complex. The 2022 Ball Python Genetics Project study in PLOS One tied it to a deletion in the OCA2 gene while Albino sits on TYR. It is traded as Lavender or Lav. Named combos include the Lavender Snow (with VPI Axanthic), the Grail (with Clown) and the Dreamsicle (with Piebald). Ralph Davis Reptiles proved it out in 2001.
Known issues
A Lavender Albino lacks iris pigment just like other albinos. This means its eyes do not filter light the way a normal's do. Morphpedia records this as photophobia. The animal is sensitive to bright light rather than afraid of it.