Albino?

[cepealove]

All my hortensis have grey feet but this one (alice) has a yello foot ? Ca any1 help x0

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[fabrizio]

Really lovely snail

They are highly variable, and some paler specimens do occour (this happens even with locals).

I never understood the "albino" matter with snails, as it seems that rather a lack of pigmentation, there is a presence of some "white/yellowish" pigment, instead.

The most remarkable fact in your snail Alice, is the co-occourrence of "whitening" both in the foot, and in the shell!

It would be intersting to see better the foot, and possibly in close comparison to "normal" ones you find there.

[cepealove]

Ill get working on pictures i use the phone for internet and pics so not the highest quality. I have 1 identicle to her but his foot is black/grey x

[cepealove]

Jasper and alice

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[101100101111]

wow, that's a very striking difference! perhaps alice is albino to some measure...

[cepealove]

It would be nice to thinkso her shell is such a dark brown though

[cepealove]

It would be nice to thinkso her shell is such a dark brown though

[101100101111]

you may know that in snail albinism, there are two 'types,' firstly, and most commonly are snails where the body is albino, and the shell is not, as well cases where the body and shell are both 'albino', you can see this in Achatina Fulica GALS where white bodied snails are nicknamed 'white jade' variants, and the albino shelled ones 'rodatzis,' when you get a snail that has both an albino body and shell, it is called a 'jadatzi,' a mixing of the two words, therefore i believe that Alice must be like a 'White Jade,' in that her body is albino, and her shell is not...well done on discovering Alice, as from what i can tell, wild british Albinos are very rare.

[cepealove]

Ahh i see, i never understood that before. Wow rare would she be fertile and would the albino gene carry?

[coyote]

I wonder if it is leucism and not albinism? Leucism is a reduction of all skin pigmentation (not just melanin).

[cepealove]

You can see better here and comparison 2 the darkest skin i have and the lightest x

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[fabrizio]

Now she can be seen better

Perhaps Coyote is right, it could be "leucism"; I believe that a totally, really un-pigmented snail would rather be transparent, hyaline or the like.

It's really noticeable, and as 101100101111 wrote, it could be quite rare....

You should so let her to mate, and check if/how much the same coloration (or a stand-between) is passed to offspring.

Should none appear with the same colouration, I would trust they carry the genes anyhow, so that could re-appear in the following, inbred generation.

Please keep us updated with her

[cepealove]

Wow, i have been looking around on the net for other cases like alices and found none. She was brought into my collection because her shell colour, i wanted to breed a dark orange stripey one to her, but think my 2 almost white shells with pale skins would go better with her, finger crossed. Maybe for now ill put her with all the other nemoralis's just for a better chance of breeding x

[fabrizio]

As to her most remarkable trait is in the foot colour, maybe a "similarity" regarding that trait should be given priority in sorting a pair; but I understand she is "alone"... Yet perhaps among all of the "normal" ones, a single individual with a foot colour slightly more similar to her, could come out, I hope!

Otherwise, any other criterion would work as well. The most important fact, is that even provided first generation shouldn't exhibit a yellowish foot, subsequent ones almost surely will do.
Good luck with her

[ness]

I have many cepeaea around my way, I'll have to go on a snail hunt and photograph some for you. A significant proportion have yellow flesh like your's. I believe a true albino snail would lack pigment even in the eye itself?

Yes under normal genetic rules, if the pale flesh trait is recessive, you should be able to produce more of the same by breeding it with any other cepaea, then breeding the offspring together. This would, in theory, result in half of the offspring being of yellow foot. The rules applied very nicely when breeding jadatzis.

However snail genetics appear to be a little unpredictable at times and there's been much discussion on it. For example if you breed a dark and a light fleshed (though not true albino) marginata together a proportion of offspring will be a beautiful grey-cream colour, a mix between the two parents.

Also I have had two Achatina fulica var. hamillie f. rodatzi produce a normal striped-shelled baby. Just one out of a clutch. This in theory should be impossible, as the two parents should not even have the striped shell gene within them, and therefore shouldn't be able to pass it on. It's hard to explain, but hamillei can produce plain shelled (rodatzi) or striped shelled snails. The rodatzi plain shelled trait appears to be recessive, and so if two hams breed they may pass on a pair of genes to each snail with coding for stripes or plain. If either one of these genes is a striped gene then, being as this gene is dominent (the one that physically shows up) the baby snail will have a stripey shell. A rodatzi therefore must only have genes that are plain, and therefore it should only be able to pass plain genes on.

However I am wondering, and this is a theory, if snails pass on genes with a tendancy to switch on or off the stripes or the colour. Each gene has the potential for the colour or the stripe, but are passed on as being recessively switched off, or dominently switched on. Therefore snails showing recessive colouring or pattern can still pass on genes for the regular colour/pattern, but the vast majority of the time they will be switched off, yet occasionally, by some error or by environmental trigger perhaps, the genes get switched on again in subsequent offspring, as was the case with my stripy rodatzi baby?
Just a theory.

I believe that cepaea have genetic codings that are hard to fathom, and hard to predict, and do not necessarily follow the rules that you would expect of dominent/recessive genes. It would be interesting to conduct a little breeding experiment to find out.

[cepealove]

I have 1 with a pale foot but its light grey. Your theory has intrigued me. I love genetics, snails are a new one to me though.

ive been keeping Alice with a juvenile and 4 aspersa's but will look through my other nemoralis's and find a suitable mate. X

[wolf]

Hi, ness!
Thanks for your fascinating post.
As far as I know, there are two different definitions of “albinism” in zoology: some authors define albinism as a lack of all pigments, while some people define it as a lack of melanin only. I´m a little bit confused about the fact that an Archachatina marginata ovum with very light body pigmentation but dark eye tentacles and eyes is called “amelanistic” sometimes. It might be melanin in these regions, why not?

You wrote: “……..if you breed a dark and a light fleshed (though not true albino) marginata together a proportion of offspring will be a beautiful grey-cream color, a mix between the two parents.” That´s astonishing. If the parents are both homozygous and the genetic mechanism is “intermediate”, all the offspring should be of grey-cream colour.

Your finding about A. fulica f. rodatzi (I suppose, not all rodatzi belong to the subspecies “hamillei” any more after numerous cross-breedings in captivity……) having streaked shells in the offspring is a finding I am looking for, for several months. If in the offspring of rodatzi x rodatzi streaked shells are very (!) seldom, one could think of a “backward mutation”. Such things happen from time to time.
If this phenomenon happens more frequently, there might be some “heterogenic” effect involved: streaked vs unstreaked is not controlled by one gene, but two or more genes. We know this mechanism from the inheritance pattern of deafness in humans, for example. Genetically caused deafness in humans is inherited recessive, but heterogenity explains very easily how two deaf parents can have children with normal hearing function. Concerningig the pigmentation of rodatzi/fulica fulica, the participation of more than one gene is kind of plausible, because pigments are synthesized by a pathway with several different enzymes, each of them could possibly be damaged and out of function by incorrect information on the DNA.
Yes, true enough, in another forum last year I discussed the possibility of some “epigenetic” mechanisms, just switching the genes on and off. Gene regulation is a common phenomenon, so it might be involved here, too.
So, what is the right interpretation of our (your) findings concerning A. fulica f. rodatzi? We need more hard facts and findings, beyond any doubt.
I definitively apologize for my terrible English…….. . Thanks again for your post, kind regards: wolf

[fabrizio]

Ness wrote -
if you breed a dark and a light fleshed (though not true albino) marginata together a proportion of offspring will be a beautiful grey-cream color, a mix between the two parents.” That´s astonishing. If the parents are both homozygous and the genetic mechanism is “intermediate”, all the offspring should be of grey-cream colour.

I observed something similar in wild populations of local Cantareus apertus : most of them are greyish fleshed, some are deep tar-black, and a few ones are almost white (where the shell does usually appear greenish).

When they will come out again next Autumn I could try to quantify the phenomenon, calculating rough percentages of each for a fixed area-

-I could even try to plan selective mating if I free some space (and they are a bit fussy as captive species).

As Wolf explains, different pigments (from different genes, and besides a single pigment require several active genes in cascade to be bio-synthesized) co-occour to give the shell its actual coloration.
-So their actual Genetic could be all but trivial, and epigenetic factors, as Wolf suggests, could have a role in it, too.

[cepealove]

Ok reading this at 10 to 12 has made my brain work hard. GaaAaah!
ness could you get pictures of the snails round you like alice? X x

[ness]

Yes I will do. It's best if I go out after a rainy day. I thought about nipping out now but it's a bit late. I'll perhaps go out tomorrow.
In the mean-time - here's some I collected a couple of years ago. There's both nemoralis and hortensis in there.

[cepealove]

Thanks, the lighter skined ones in your pic are like the one i plan to put alice with, x

[ness]

Wolf -
Many apologies - I have only just seen your post in reply to mine.
Thank you very much indeed for posting your reply, I have always had an interest in science including biology, and was good at it too in school (I'm not trying to boast), but I never went on to study it further, so my knowledge is limited to an interest in these matters, so I think I need to look further into genetics before making any more contributions becuase I realise just how little I know on the subject! But I'm very interested in this, and will share any more findings when my snails breed. I understand what you have told me though, and I realise it is hard to get to the cause of particular genetic traits.
And - your English is very good indeed. Thank you once again

Cepaealove -
I mentioned that I would go out and take photos of some of the snails in the area where I live - which I did last night after a heavy rain shower, but I'm afraid to say I took some of nemoralis, not hortensis - I got it into my head some how that the thread was about nemoralis, not hortensis. Sorry about that, I shall make another attempt. You are welcome to see my photo of the nemoralis though if you would like?

[wolf]

Hi, ness!
Thanks for your post. Anything´s fine!
True enough, things are are little bit difficult sometimes in genetics. But if we all work together, we´ll make progress, slowly, but step by step, just the way snails are moving...... .
Your idea about switching genes on and off was splendid, indeed .
I would be happy to hear about new facts and findings of yours, any time....... .
Thanks again, have a good time, kind regards: wolf