Question: The Genetics of light olives/coppers?

Well... can anybody tell me what is the difference between "light olive" and "copper" axies, or are they in fact one and the same?

As I see it 'coppers' are in fact T-positive (T for tyronase) albinos; they can't produce melanin, just like a normal albino, but get further along the conversion than 'golden albinos' resulting in a yellowish/red individual but with black eyes and some brown spots.

So my question is, are what we call 'olives' the same as what some call coppers? are they all just T-positive albinos or is there some differentiation between the two? Perhaps are 'olives' just a natural variance in the wild-type phenotype (colour)?

i have been wondering this too.

I would take a picture of mine, but don't have a camera handy, so here are some other pics blatantly plagiarized from the internet

View attachment 17876 View attachment 17877 View attachment 17878

I tried to find a variety, but at the moment it would seem that olives the same, genetically, as coppers. They both have some sort of partial inhibition of melanin (most probably T+ albinos.)

Easiest way is to look for melanin in the pupil of the eye, mine has a red pupil so I'm going to guess T+ albino (a reccessive trait from what i understand.)

Well, this is my olive boy.
One shot of his face and eyes, and then another of his whole body (or well as much as was in view).
Hope it helps!

I think of olives as being much lighter and more grey than coppers, also not as golden.
The pet shop I got mine from also called him an olive.
But this could be just gradations of the same colour.
It interests me that his freckles on his nose are in a pattern, not simply scattered (they start at the tip of his nose and curl around his eyes).

the pet stores where i live call wild types ollives, allthough i've never seen one. Your axolotls are all so beautifull! @jossie, thats Marshmallow right?

He doesn't actually have a name!
Although I've considered calling him Marshmallow (blame Sarah aka The Banana for that one lol)
He's a little less pink than he is in the photos, but not drastically so.

wow, what a lovely axie. When I got mine I was just looking for a good breeding male, and originally had picked another one, but i couldn't stop looking at 'leopard.' The person I was with asked me if I wanted to get another axie as well... silly question. I would take them all home if I could . and that's how I got mine, I do love him so :grin:

whatever the case I think it's pretty safe to say that 'olives' share fundamentally the same genes as coppers.... So now the question is why the difference in colour?

So as for marshmellow Red pupils, so I suppose that means T+. I've read in other species the T+ and T- albino genes are separate, but I am not sure if the two are possibly co-dominant. Perhaps the allele pair combination determines the degree of tyroinase ihibition.

i.e. t-/t- = golden albino t+/t- = light olives (like marshmallow) t+/t+ = copper

Or maybe they are both just unrelated recessives, and the degree of tyroinase inhibition depends on the individual's metabolism.

.... why do answers always lead to more questions :wacko:?

oh just had an afterthought,

When I originally got leopard he was a lot lighter. He seems to have got a bit darker since i got him, less of an olive and more of a copper.

Without boring you with the details the t+ gene a gets most of the way to making melanin, but not quite there. So there would be a gradual buildup of this semi-complete product over time, and possibly it's this buildup that give coppers their colour compared to olives who will gradually get more coppery

So there you go.
I talk too much :talker:

good explanation! I have seen quite a few copper/olives around here, and they seem to be quite rare in the rest of the world. I guess it reflects the amount of inbreeding?

Inbreeding is a good explanation.

Welll... I got curious about the whole inheritance pattern thingy so I crossed my golden albino with my olive male.
The eggs are 4 days old and developing well, but interestingly they are all white with not a single black one. So this definitely supports our little theory about olives being another form of albinism as albino eggs are white.

From the babies colours I ought to be able to tell the exact inheritance pattern.

whatever the case it would have most likely been difficult to pure-breed a copper/olive axie, and has only probably happened in Australia because of the intense inbreeding, (lucky it causes relatively few problems for axolotls)

Your female axolotl is golden albino and so will only lay white eggs. I've never heard of a female axolotl laying some white and some black eggs. You will only be able to see what colour your babies will be when they are nearly ready to hatch.

I've previously crossed a golden albino father with an olive/copper female and got albino, golden albino, purplish olive and olive babies in equal proportions.


Regards Neil

that's fantastic! what do you do with all the babies?

That's interesting about the colour of the mother determining the colour of the eggs. All the same I can source the lineages from both sides so will still be able to determine the inheritance pattern from the babies.

As for what I'll do, well I have a huge tank setup ... seriously soo many tanks! I retrofitted an old shop display for breeding and raising axies last year for a paper I was doing on their genetics. So I raised about 1000 of them to juveniles then sold them or gave them away to people and a few to aquariums that I know are reputable for their housing and treatment of axies, mostly the place I get mine. (It has a six foot setup in the cold water section with oodles of pcv piping no-gravel and a non cramped number of happy completely whole axies.)

So I suppose I will do the same this time. It ought to be easier as there are only 100-200 (i think), certainly not 1000's like last time!

I love raising axolotl and have actually been thinking about custom-making a proper breeding setup when I move house instead of the retrofitted display tanks and bit-and-bobs I have at the moment.


Edit: Also thanks Neil for that info about your babies it will help me with identifying the method of inheritance.