Joe Exposito's hypo above next to the extreme ghost is a very nice example of a tangerine hypo that is displaying a very substantial reduction of melanin. That individual is what I and some other's refer to as an "ultra-light" hypo. These are not quite reduced enough to be considered "extreme" hypos, but they are several steps above just a clean, darker hypo.



Hypos can vary GREATLY and there might even be several different genes involved too. Isolating them and knowing for certain exactly which one's they might be, or are just simply variations of the same identical hypo gene is what is practically impossible to really know or distinguish. Hardly any hypo clutches ever produced have identical looking offspring and are usually quite variable. The question as to why this typically occurs just isn't understood.



Hypos can range anywhere from a scale of 1 to 10, and anything inbetween. As a matter of fact, it is tough to distinguish a VERY clean normal from a hypo that is at the lowest end of the scale.



A so-called "super hypo" is just a market name Steve Osborne came up with to distinguish his specific bloodline from some of the others. These line-bred hypos probably originated from some of the "tangerine Dreams" that are the original line that Bill Love started from a nice looking very clean import animal he acquired in Miami back around 1986.



As time went on, there started to be more and more offspring produced that displayed less and less melanin in the rings, and also the melanin in some was starting to lighten the amount of melanin in the pupils to were they were noticeably a very deep ruby-red coloration. In around 1995-96 a VERY clean hypo that you could just see a lighter shade of milky translucents to the dark rings and see very deep red eyes were going for $1,800 to $2,000 bucks each!



Anyway, Steves line of "super" hypos, and most all others that are known of are indeed allelic and compatible. The vast range between tricolor and solid bicolored Hondos is a natural co-dominant coloration that can make each color phase, or any range in between. It seems the tangerine color gene is a bit stronger in expression than the lighter tricolored types, but either can be produced in given clutches, and it depends on what types of backgrounds the babies were produced from as well.



Tricolor HYPOS are far less common than tangerines though. But there are more of them appearing as time goes on.



There is actually WAAAAY more to alot of this than I could possibly even begin to get into in a post or two. there simply are no easy yes and no, or one answer answers to alot regarding snake genetics, and Hondurans can vary DRASTICALLY for many different reasons too. You will see more and more aof what I am talking about if you stick with this for a good while, and I certainly hope you do. There are countless variations in Hondos that are tough to categorize real simply...



Gosh I hate photobucket sometimes, it won't even allow me to upload some awesome hypo pics to show you.....arrrgh!..



I'll post thenm here when it wats to stop limping along..LOL!





~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"





serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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