Question: Is there a albino prairie dog?

Firestar97

Firestar97
Needed to google it myself but it seems like there isn't a Albino Prairie Dog. There seems to be a leucistic Prairie Dog though but I couldn't find any Pictures of it
 

coatifan

coatifan
Yes, there is a white prairie dog variant, though as Urufu pointed out it is technically leucistic and not albino (IIRC, you can tell because it doesn't have red eyes). I found this picture on Steam.
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Firestar97

Firestar97
coatifan said:
Yes, there is a white prairie dog variant, though as Urufu pointed out it is technically leucistic and not albino (IIRC, you can tell because it doesn't have red eyes). I found this picture on Steam.
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Looks really nice. After looking at this, I think it wouldn't be too hard for them to use it as a Base for the Creation of a domesticated Rabbit
 

peafowl

P
afaik albino covers a lot of terms including leucistic, so he is actually a type of albino. albino just means a loss of pigment mutation
 

SallinDaemon

SallinDaemon
peafowl said:
afaik albino covers a lot of terms including leucistic, so he is actually a type of albino. albino just means a loss of pigment mutation
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Ooh, it's actually a little more complicated than that! Sorry but you've caught my interest in genetics and this is stuff related to a LOT of breeding-animals-for-colourmorphs stuff.

Albinism is a genetic mutation that results in a lack of melanin pigment in particular. The cells that should be displaying melanin pigment are still there, they just can't produce it for whatever reason. Some animals have more pigments than melanin making up their colouration, and so these will still be displayed. You''l see a lot of albino snakes, for instance, that are yellow! Similarly, if a snake has melanin but is lacking in the yellow pigment, they turn out more grey looking and are known as axanthic.

Leucism, on the other hand, is a range of different conditions including stuff like vitiligo and piebalding due to problems occuring at the cell-development stage (that are usually caused by genes, but can express differently for each individual). The colour-producing cells are often missing, either because they don't migrate from the neural crest (a Something that happens during embryonic development that I don't totally understand, I think it has something to do with the development of the spinal chord), or because the colour cells never develop from stem cells to begin with! Sometimes this happens but like, some of the cells are working and where they should be, so you end up with more washed out/diluted looks like isabellism.

The reason leucistic animals always have 'normal' eyes, is because the pigmented cells in the eyes form separately to whatever's going on in the neural crest that causes the pigment changes to the body, so whatever genetics are at play over there, they don't trigger during eye-pigment-development and thus don't affect the eyes. Albinism on the other hand, affects the ability of all the cells in the body to produce melanin right from the get-go, which includes the eyes! Sometimes albino animals again have other pigments that are still at play though, or have structural (non-pigmented) eye colours, so they don't always have red/pink eyes!
 

coatifan

coatifan
SallinDaemon said:
Ooh, it's actually a little more complicated than that! Sorry but you've caught my interest in genetics and this is stuff related to a LOT of breeding-animals-for-colourmorphs stuff.

Albinism is a genetic mutation that results in a lack of melanin pigment in particular. The cells that should be displaying melanin pigment are still there, they just can't produce it for whatever reason. Some animals have more pigments than melanin making up their colouration, and so these will still be displayed. You''l see a lot of albino snakes, for instance, that are yellow! Similarly, if a snake has melanin but is lacking in the yellow pigment, they turn out more grey looking and are known as axanthic.

Leucism, on the other hand, is a range of different conditions including stuff like vitiligo and piebalding due to problems occuring at the cell-development stage (that are usually caused by genes, but can express differently for each individual). The colour-producing cells are often missing, either because they don't migrate from the neural crest (a Something that happens during embryonic development that I don't totally understand, I think it has something to do with the development of the spinal chord), or because the colour cells never develop from stem cells to begin with! Sometimes this happens but like, some of the cells are working and where they should be, so you end up with more washed out/diluted looks like isabellism.

The reason leucistic animals always have 'normal' eyes, is because the pigmented cells in the eyes form separately to whatever's going on in the neural crest that causes the pigment changes to the body, so whatever genetics are at play over there, they don't trigger during eye-pigment-development and thus don't affect the eyes. Albinism on the other hand, affects the ability of all the cells in the body to produce melanin right from the get-go, which includes the eyes! Sometimes albino animals again have other pigments that are still at play though, or have structural (non-pigmented) eye colours, so they don't always have red/pink eyes!
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What an in-depth explanation! Thanks, this was fascinating.
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
SallinDaemon said:
Ooh, it's actually a little more complicated than that! Sorry but you've caught my interest in genetics and this is stuff related to a LOT of breeding-animals-for-colourmorphs stuff.

Albinism is a genetic mutation that results in a lack of melanin pigment in particular. The cells that should be displaying melanin pigment are still there, they just can't produce it for whatever reason. Some animals have more pigments than melanin making up their colouration, and so these will still be displayed. You''l see a lot of albino snakes, for instance, that are yellow! Similarly, if a snake has melanin but is lacking in the yellow pigment, they turn out more grey looking and are known as axanthic.

Leucism, on the other hand, is a range of different conditions including stuff like vitiligo and piebalding due to problems occuring at the cell-development stage (that are usually caused by genes, but can express differently for each individual). The colour-producing cells are often missing, either because they don't migrate from the neural crest (a Something that happens during embryonic development that I don't totally understand, I think it has something to do with the development of the spinal chord), or because the colour cells never develop from stem cells to begin with! Sometimes this happens but like, some of the cells are working and where they should be, so you end up with more washed out/diluted looks like isabellism.

The reason leucistic animals always have 'normal' eyes, is because the pigmented cells in the eyes form separately to whatever's going on in the neural crest that causes the pigment changes to the body, so whatever genetics are at play over there, they don't trigger during eye-pigment-development and thus don't affect the eyes. Albinism on the other hand, affects the ability of all the cells in the body to produce melanin right from the get-go, which includes the eyes! Sometimes albino animals again have other pigments that are still at play though, or have structural (non-pigmented) eye colours, so they don't always have red/pink eyes!
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Thanks for the Explanation about yellow Snakes.
Leucism can affect the Eyes though. Many leucistic Animals have blue Eyes.
Still confused about Snowflake. That Gorilla is always refered to as a Albino Gorilla but his Eyes were blue. Does this mean the Eyes of Albino Animals do sometimes have some Pigmentation or was he in Reality a leucistic Gorilla?🤔
 

SallinDaemon

SallinDaemon
Urufu1997 said:
Thanks for the Explanation about yellow Snakes.
Leucism can affect the Eyes though. Many leucistic Animals have blue Eyes.
Still confused about Snowflake. That Gorilla is always refered to as a Albino Gorilla but his Eyes were blue. Does this mean the Eyes of Albino Animals do sometimes have some Pigmentation or was he in Reality a leucistic Gorilla?🤔
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Ooh, yeah you're right, my bad on that! Some types of leucism can affect the eyes! I don't know why I put 'always', I was literally thinking about various piebald animals I've seen with heterochromia as a result of one of the non-coloured patches covering the eye. I'm... not actually sure what's causing that if eye pigment isn't linked to the neural crest stuff. Eye colour pigmentation is pretty... complicated, though, so I'd imagine it might have something to do with some of the pigmenting genes being linked to the same genes that cause the leucism in the first place? So some are expressing while others aren't?
(Despite its use as an example of dominant/recessive traits, eye colour is actually a bad example as there are actually multiple genes involved in eye colours, and the number of them that are switched to Make Melanin or Make This Different Melanin So It's Green or Don't Make Melanin are what determines the resulting eye colour across more of a spectrum - at least in humans!)

I can answer on the gorilla Snowflake though - he was definitely an albino! Iirc from a few discussions I've had about him with people who know more about it than I do, Snowflake had genetic testing done on him, and it was a type of albinism I can't remember the name of that we also see in humans sometimes.

Contrary to popular belief, a lot of albino animals can have blue eyes! They sometimes might not be fully blue, as there may be some translucence (sometimes leading to eyes kinda looking purple in some light) and a lot of the time ambient light conditions can have an effect on what colour you can see. Blue as an eye colour is mostly structural rather than pigmented - the way light refracts in the iris leads to only blue light bouncing back out to be visible. It's the same effect that turns the sea and the sky blue, and why a lot of people with blue eyes will claim that their eyes shift colour slightly 'depending on their mood'. The intensity of the blue colour can be affected by how much blue light is around, and also how much of the iris is showing due to dilation, so it's not totally unfounded.

It's amazing what happens when one little mistake in how a cell folds up a protein can result in such drastic differences sometimes.
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
SallinDaemon said:
Contrary to popular belief, a lot of albino animals can have blue eyes! They sometimes might not be fully blue, as there may be some translucence (sometimes leading to eyes kinda looking purple in some light)
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🤔 Could explain the Claims someone made once about owning a Dog with purple Eyes. Probably partial Albinism or Leucism. Sadly as far as I remember no Pictures were posted though
 

Firestar97

Firestar97
coatifan said:
Yes, they can both be white. I'm curious -- why all the specific gameplay questions if you don't own the game? No judgement, just wondering.
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Is there a Screenshot somewhere? I'm mostly keeping Aldabra Tortoises in my Zoos, so I never had one and I can't find a Picture of the Albino Galapagos Tortoise and would absolutely love to see it🐢
 

coatifan

coatifan
Urufu1997 said:
Is there a Screenshot somewhere? I'm mostly keeping Aldabra Tortoises in my Zoos, so I never had one and I can't find a Picture of the Albino Galapagos Tortoise and would absolutely love to see it🐢
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It appears there actually may not be an albino, at least according to the steam thread.
 
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