>>k...so if you select the lightest ones to hold back and to breed...isn't that line breeding for the look of a polymorphic hypo?



I think this gets to the crux of the matter: it all depends on definitions.



"hypo" when used in the broadest sense of "reduced melanin" (whether pattern or pigment, "polymorphic", or line-bred) would mean that ANY hondo that's lighter than another hondo that can be set beside it, is a hypo. (and the other one, by extension, is hypermelanistic, because it's darker). If you think that's too extreme, then let's say any hondo lighter than the norm/median is a hypo, and any darker ones are hypermelanistics. When the argument is reduced this far, imho it becomes meaningless.



I think the challenge is to determine

1) what the extremes and megas are--it might take DNA testing to determine this, or tissue analysis. Not likely to come soon!

and

2) figure out the method of inheritance. As i said in my previous post, if there are multiple hypo morphs, they've been mixed up so much i can't currently see a way to isolate them for testing.



So how to explain "regular" hypos and their variation, plus extremes, plus megas?



Suppose the original Love recessive hypo gene isn't one that always reduces melanin by x % (let's say 50%, for discussion) but rather, one that reduces melanin 40-60%. (Not all red heads are the same shade of red, right?!)



That (combined with wild-type variation in amounts of melanin) would account for "normal" hypos of varying lightness.



As those hypos are bred to each other, you're eventually gonna get some that are the result of "40%" x "40%" animals, and they're gonna be lighter. And so on. In other words, it's logical to expect some specimens of the morph to become lighter and lighter in subsequent generations. That would also account for why the extremes and megas have all popped up in clutches tracing back to "regular" hypos.

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