At a reptile auction in 2015, a breeder paid 10,000 dollars for two leopard geckos with unusually white skin that made their yellow bands look almost fluorescent. The morph was called Lemon Frost. A California breeding operation began producing them the following year, and the rare animals could fetch upwards of 2,000 dollars each. Then the tumors started.
More than 80 percent of lemon-frost geckos develop iridophoromas, aggressive tumors of light-reflecting pigment cells, which begin as dense nodules in the skin and often spread through the body. The trait people paid a premium for and the disease killing the animals turned out to be inseparable. A study published on July 15 argues that this accident of the pet trade may now become a genuinely useful tool for understanding how tumors form and metastasize.
