AMAZING ! ! ALBINO SEA TURTLE

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N2TORTS

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While finishing some research on genetics, I wanted to share this photo I came across.It shows truley, wild card' genes can play roles in every living creature.Here is an Albino Green Sea Turtle
Just thought this was so NEAT~O !
Albino-1-plastron.gif

JD~:)
 

egyptiandan

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Very cool :D Not an albino though :p It's a leucistic Green sea turtle.

Danny
 

N2TORTS

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Hes right ... a true albino would have pink eyes ..!
Thanks Dan!
 

85hardy

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Wow that is amazing and so cute. If you looked at it quick i would say it was a ceramic that still needed to be painted, But it is really beautiful. I would love to see it full grown one day.
 

egyptiandan

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Albinos are different in reptiles than in birds or mammals. They have more color chromsomes, so aren't white when albino, they are usually yellow or yellowish. To get an even lighter animal, you need to breed it with an anerythiristic animal. The resulting animal is usually known as a snow, insert species here, (ie. snow corn).
Albinos have red eyes. Leucistic animals have normal or blue eyes. In reptiles they are very white, like this hatchling.

Danny
 

N2TORTS

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DonaTello said:
Whats the difference between the two Danny?

1) ALBINISM- genetic mutations that alter the pigment cells of the skin and other tissues in such a way that the pigments themselves are not formed in their final, normal biological form. NOTE I said skin and other tissues. If the skin and rest of the body is not devoid of pigment, but the hair or feathers are white, that does not equate to albino. Also albinism is a derangement of pigment formation, not deposition. There are numerous forms of albinism. In humans, there are two pigments. Eumelanin is brown to black and pheomelanin is rusty or even orange or red. They travel along a similar cascade when being formed but differ in the amount of sulfur in the final melanin compound. Any disruption along the cascade can cause a form of albinism. Some albinos have red hair because they have a gene that is faulty for the formation of eumelanin, so they are really only eumelanistic albinos. Other pigments found in reptiles can also have faulty genes. The pteridines and drosopterins in the other cells (xanthophores and a subset of xanthophores called erythrophores) can cause other forms of albinism. Currently the iridophores (which use crystals and refraction to cause color instead of pigment) are not really known to be faulty in the same way since there are not pigments but crystals; so iridophoric albinism is something that simply does not occur, at least so far as is known in the literature.

2)LEUKISM (LEUCISM)- medically defined this is a defect in the skin, not the pigment cells. There are other derangements of pigment that can cause a whitening effect, but they are not classical leukism. Classical leukism is caused by a faulty gene, or set of genes, that causes the skin to be unable to support pigment cells. Experiments have been done that illustrate this. In one set of experiments normal pigment cells from a normal animal were placed in albino skin and the cells were normal and produced pigment. This demonstrated that the albino defect was in the pigment cells of the albino but not in the skin itself. The same experiment done in leukistic skin caused the normal pigment cells to die. Some have claimed that the reason eyes are pigmented in leukistic animals is because the pigment in the eye comes from another origin (the non-neural crest theory). This is really not the case. In fact some (unfortunately as yet unpublished research that really needs to get published) experiments were done transplanting RPE eye pigment cells into the skin and they died. Conclusion? Well nothing. The eye pigment cells can't survive out of the eye is all that proved. So melanophores from the iris were transplanted and they died in leukistic skin but survived in albino skin. Conclusion? The defect has to do with the skin, not the origin of the pigment cells. Further evidence of this can be found in numerous species that have melanin or other pigments present in other tissues such as the peritoneum but are typical of leukistic animals on the outside when alive.

JD~ :)

MR . Dan ..is right again .... Reptiles are different than ..other animals ..when it comes to gentics ' oddities!
 

-JM

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N2TORTS said:
DonaTello said:
Whats the difference between the two Danny?

1) ALBINISM- genetic mutations that alter the pigment cells of the skin and other tissues in such a way that the pigments themselves are not formed in their final, normal biological form. NOTE I said skin and other tissues. If the skin and rest of the body is not devoid of pigment, but the hair or feathers are white, that does not equate to albino. Also albinism is a derangement of pigment formation, not deposition. There are numerous forms of albinism. In humans, there are two pigments. Eumelanin is brown to black and pheomelanin is rusty or even orange or red. They travel along a similar cascade when being formed but differ in the amount of sulfur in the final melanin compound. Any disruption along the cascade can cause a form of albinism. Some albinos have red hair because they have a gene that is faulty for the formation of eumelanin, so they are really only eumelanistic albinos. Other pigments found in reptiles can also have faulty genes. The pteridines and drosopterins in the other cells (xanthophores and a subset of xanthophores called erythrophores) can cause other forms of albinism. Currently the iridophores (which use crystals and refraction to cause color instead of pigment) are not really known to be faulty in the same way since there are not pigments but crystals; so iridophoric albinism is something that simply does not occur, at least so far as is known in the literature.

2)LEUKISM (LEUCISM)- medically defined this is a defect in the skin, not the pigment cells. There are other derangements of pigment that can cause a whitening effect, but they are not classical leukism. Classical leukism is caused by a faulty gene, or set of genes, that causes the skin to be unable to support pigment cells. Experiments have been done that illustrate this. In one set of experiments normal pigment cells from a normal animal were placed in albino skin and the cells were normal and produced pigment. This demonstrated that the albino defect was in the pigment cells of the albino but not in the skin itself. The same experiment done in leukistic skin caused the normal pigment cells to die. Some have claimed that the reason eyes are pigmented in leukistic animals is because the pigment in the eye comes from another origin (the non-neural crest theory). This is really not the case. In fact some (unfortunately as yet unpublished research that really needs to get published) experiments were done transplanting RPE eye pigment cells into the skin and they died. Conclusion? Well nothing. The eye pigment cells can't survive out of the eye is all that proved. So melanophores from the iris were transplanted and they died in leukistic skin but survived in albino skin. Conclusion? The defect has to do with the skin, not the origin of the pigment cells. Further evidence of this can be found in numerous species that have melanin or other pigments present in other tissues such as the peritoneum but are typical of leukistic animals on the outside when alive.

JD~ :)

MR . Dan ..is right again .... Reptiles are different than ..other animals ..when it comes to gentics ' oddities!

Very well put! :) Thanks for sharing the picture he's a beautiful little animal. Do you know where he hatched from?
 

Yvonne G

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I hope whoever found him is keeping him in captivity. Would be a shame to turn him loose only to have him eaten because he's so visible.
 

-JM

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emysemys said:
I hope whoever found him is keeping him in captivity. Would be a shame to turn him loose only to have him eaten because he's so visible.

I would guess he was born in "captivity"
Judging by the dirt in the background it looks like he was one of many of the eggs collected along the coastline. They hatch and then are released in a controlled environment to ensure the maximum survival rate of the hatchlings.

http://www.seaturtleinc.org/

^like these guys do :)

Of course, being so visible would be a disadvantage to the extreme, so you're right. I hope they didn't turn him loose with his "normal" brothers and sisters.
 

dmmj

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Nice pic
so Leucistic = blue eyes and very very white, then I must be Leucistic
 

socalturtle

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In 2006 I was in Australia and saw a leucistic green sea turtle hatchling at the Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville. I believe he was only a few months old. If I remember right he hatched in the wild in a nest that was being monitored and he was brought to the aquarium. They were not planning to release him. Not sure if this is the same turtle or not, but that is the only one I have ever seen or heard of.
 

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Here's another I just came across...don't know if it's the same animal or whether it's a green or hawksbill...Danny?

16i88dk.jpg
 
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