All Angles Creatures

Lemon Frost Common Leopard Gecko

peer reviewedSPINT1co-dominant

Guo et al. (2021): "Lemon Frost geckos have increased white body coloration with brightened yellow and orange areas. This morph also displays a high incidence of iridophoroma, a tumor of white-colored cells. We obtained phenotype information and DNA samples from geckos in a large breeding colony and used genome sequencing and genetic linkage analysis to localize the Lemon Frost mutation to a single locus."

How it inherits

One copy
One copy is enough to see it.
Two copies
Two copies produce a distinct animal with its own name — not simply a stronger version.

Lemon Frost × Lemon Frost

Four ways the two can meet.

1 in 4Lemon Frost
1 in 4Lemon Frost
1 in 4Super Lemon Frost
1 in 4Normal
  • Lemon Frost50%
  • Super Lemon Frost25%
  • Normal25%

A pale box is an animal that shows the morph. These are the odds for each egg on its own, not a promise about a clutch.

Documented health finding. This morph also displays a high incidence of iridophoroma, a tumor of white-colored cells.

What this rests on

A peer-reviewed paper identifies the variant behind this morph in the gene SPINT1.

  • Melanophoromas and iridophoromas in reptiles. — J Comp Pathol 2011
  • Genetics of white color and iridophoroma in "Lemon Frost" leopard geckos. — PLoS Genet 2021
  • Iridophoroma associated with the Lemon Frost colour morph of the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius). — Sci Rep 2020
  • Genetics and biology of coloration in reptiles: The curious case of the Lemon Frost geckos. — Physiol Genomics 2023
  • Chromatophoromas in reptiles. — Vet Sci 2022
  • Iridophoroma in leopard geckos (Eublepharis macularius): Clinical complications and histopathology. — J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci 2025
  • Dissecting cancer in a non-mammalian model: genomic insights from lemon frost geckos. — BMC Biol 2026

Entry in Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals

What happens if you breed it

Every pairing involving Lemon Frost, worked out gene by gene — including what the clutch can be and anything documented about the animals it produces.

See every Common Leopard Gecko pairing

Other Common Leopard Gecko morphs