Entry 4Colour modifier
Axanthic
Strips out most yellow, orange and red, leaving greys, blacks and white.
x
What it looks like
Axanthic geckos lose most or all of their warm colour. With little or no yellow, orange or red, the gecko shows in greys and blacks, and areas that would normally be cream turn bright white.
Rockstar Geckos describes a grey to black base with crisp white markings, like a gecko from a black-and-white film, and calls the missing warm tones the key giveaway. Breeders debate subtle differences between lines. Other geckos can look grey too, so a grey look on its own isn't proof of Axanthic ancestry.
The series
Same animal, same seed. Only this gene changes. Open any one in the builder.
Named combinations
Morphs that need this gene and at least one other.
Axanthic Lilly White
Lilly White on an Axanthic: bright white set against a grey to black base. Rockstar Geckos rates it a standout pairing.
NeedsAxanthicLilly White
Axanthic Phantomdifficult
A deep grey to black gecko with no warm tones: Axanthic takes out the yellow and red, and Phantom mutes the pattern. Both are recessive in breeders' experience, so it takes two copies of each.
NeedsAxanthicPhantom
With other genes
Pinstripewhiten the pinning
Axanthic with Pinstripe is known for very bright, paper-white pinning, with no yellow to tint it.
Notes
How it is inheritedBreeders work Axanthic as a recessive: a gecko needs a copy from each parent to show it, and a carrier looks like any other gecko. Rockstar Geckos sets out the usual expectations: two Axanthics give all Axanthic babies; an Axanthic bred to a carrier gives about half Axanthics and half carriers; two carriers give about one Axanthic in four; and an Axanthic bred to a non-carrier gives no Axanthics, only carriers. Those expectations hold within one Axanthic line, or lines already known to work together.
Where breeders differRockstar Geckos says all the known Axanthic lines work together, but Rockstar doesn't show the crosses that would confirm it. A pairing across two different Axanthic lines is less certain than one within a line.
With other traitsRockstar Geckos rates Lilly White with Axanthic as a standout pairing, with bright white set against the dark base, and finds strong harlequin pattern hard to get on Axanthics so far.
Where it came fromRockstar Geckos' account says Axanthic was first found in the UK and brought to the United States by Brian at Altitude Exotics, and that it has since turned up in other collections, including Manatee Suncoast Lizards and Lizard Wizard's Obscurial line. That history is passed on second-hand rather than from the original breeders' own records, so who found it first is still to be confirmed.
In Gecktopia
Axanthic is recessive in the game: with two copies a gecko is drawn without yellow or red pigment. An Axanthic shows no orange, tangerine, red spots, Tri-Color, Orange Pattern strength, red Bullseye centres, ChoCho maroon or Super Fire gold, so its pattern stays cream and grey and its name leaves them out. It still carries those genes and passes them to its young, and a pairing preview does not offer them from an Axanthic parent.
- Passed on in the game as recessive.
Sources
Axanthic Crested Geckos: A Simple Genetic Guide
Rockstar Geckos, date not established
IB Exotics, 28 January 2024
Entry 4 of 33. Every gecko on this page was drawn from its own genes just now, by the renderer that draws them in the game.