Not questioning you just didn't know myself thats why i asked.
Don't worry, I did double check before I answered. One thing that makes it confusing is that not all animals have the same pigment. Reptiles have melanin pigment, for black, and xanthic pigment, for yellow. Here's a picture of a hatchling
albino, aka
amelanistic, with a normal.
You can see how the yellow on the albino corresponds to the brownish areas on the normal, and the albino's white areas are where the black is on the normal.
Here is a picture of a ball python without the xanthic, or yellow / brown, pigment. This is called
axanthic, ie "without xanthic pigment, just as the amelanistic is without melanin, black pigment. The coloring on these snakes is pretty simple, with basically those two pigments. When you compare the normal with the albino and axanthic you can tell the color on it is either black or brown, and the brown is a mix of black and yellow (on ball pythons). There are ball pythons bred that are both axanthic and amelanistic, usually called
snow. It is solid white with red eyes. If I had one of those I would throw up a picture but hey, I don't have everything.
Other animals have more pigments and that's when it gets really complicated.
A sort of interesting comparison is with people. On a simple level that makes sense to me, humans only have melanin in their skin. If you look up pictures of amelanistic / albino people they are creepy scary ghost looking things!
I hope that makes sense. I have a very basic understanding of the genetics and don't always explain it clearly.
Glad you like the cobra pictures!
