Coppers are actually a type of albino, supprisingly, dispite their sometimes VERY dark pigmentation. A few of us have bread coppers before with a high percentage albino larva (meaning they have to be a/a for albanism, a true albino) or only albinos when copper was bread with another albino. and they do lay white eggs.
“Coppers, as they call them down under, are albinos bred to have unusually high counts of iridophores and to an extent, a decent crop of xanthophores. In other words they are very, very dark xanthic albinos. I wish I could get these here in the States. I have drooled over their beauty for years.”
I'm sorry
, I know its not yours, but the axanthic-albino hypothesis just doesn't make sense. [WARNING: this next bit might get a bit biological.. sorry
]
The axanthic gene actively suppresses the production of xanthrophores (yellow pigment) as well as somewhat suppressing iridophores (shiny), thus axanthic-albinos lack both melanin and xanthrophores - resulting in a white individual with red eyes. While they may accumulate a cream tinge over time due to riboflavins in their diet this cannot be selectively bred as it is environmental, nor does selectively breeding for increased xanthrophore count make sense as as xanthrophores fail outright in xanthics due to the absence of a vital enzyme in their conversion pathway. And even if this somehow was possible xanthrophores in A.mexicanum are only yellow, thus an increased count of xanthrophores would in no way produce a copper tinge, nor would a hyperexpression of iridiophores as they would just make the axie almost white with shiny pigment (as seen in one of Jay Sommers axies).
[Ok, crazy biology aside and back to more slightly normalish stuff]
I should probably start another thread about this, but I have been conducting some research and tests as to this theory and (at least for the light olive/copper axies I have trialed) I have found that there is, in fact, a gene, separate to to the more familiar albino gene, that results in the copper phenotype through a gradual buildup in a partial product in the conversion pathway to melanin. (they basically get further along the pathway to melanin than golden albinos but not all the way)
I'm going to wait until I have all the evidence at hand until I make any claims as to the exact inheritance pattern (codominace, linkage, independent autosomal..etc). But purely speculating, it seems that the 'copper gene' is independent to traditional albinism at this stage. More substantial evidence will be available in a month or so when I have identified all phenotypes of my current batch and conducted statistical analysis against the data.