Well, I wrote the above impatiently. It is not quite true that one must call a snake with the trait in question a Stillwater Hypo. I'm surprised and grateful that nobody called me to task on this. There is, of course, another name for the Stillwater trait that sidesteps the locality issue: Golden Hypo. I presume that it was coined for that reason. I'm guessing that its origination has been discussed here in the past, but I don't recall reading it.



As a solution to the locality quandry, "Golden Hypo" is a great effort. I think it is commonly understood. Yet it has not really caught on. It seems mostly used in ads as a sort of redundancy, e.g. "Golden Stillwater Hypo" or "Golden Hypo (Stillwater)". It has not been able to stand on its own in the marketplace. It probably will never replace "Stillwater Hypo" as it seems to lack the cachet that "Stillwater" carries. So I think "Stillwater Hypo" will remain the more marketable term. IMO, its continued use will reflect not greediness or misrepresentation but simple good business sense. Having said that, full disclosure (additional information, not avoidance of the term "Stillwater" is always to be hoped for. As long as pure lines such as Ginter's (are there any others?) exist, outcrossed snakes are better described as such.

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