I wanted to start a thread to talk about the differences between Hypos & Toffeebellies.



For starters, I would like to clarify something. While "Hypos" have been called hypo for many years, this is actually a complete misuse of the term. There is nothing Hypomelanistic about "Hypos" at all! If anything, they are a different form of Amelanism as are "Albinos" and Pink Pastels. Even using the term Albino is incorrect, but that's another topic for another time. Bottom line is, I like to call them Evan's Amels.



Having clarified this, we had an indepth discussion about this several years ago: Link



I own a hypo, but have never seen a TB in person. In pictures they look very similar to me.



I am in the same boat, I have many Evan's Amels and seen several differing variations of their coloration, a few of which look like Toffees but obviously are not based on their genetics. Having said that, I know of one individual who has bred Evan's Amels to Toffees and produced all normal double het animals. This proves that the Evan's Amel and Toffee genes are not compatible regardless of similarities in coloration.



And of course there is the so-called Paradoxing which, in my opinion, is another currently misused marketing buzzword. A paradoxical animal is one that has some trait that contradicts what it is supposed to have, such as an Amelanistic animal showing Melanin. Feel free to look up the definition of Paradox. Like discussed in the above link, almost all, if not all Toffees were/are reported to exhibit some amount of Melanin even if in trace amounts. If this is true, then that would suggest to me that these might be considered more of a Hypomelanistic animal than an Amelanistic animal exhibiting a paradoxical trait.



Of course this is all academic conjecture on my part based on other's observations of Toffee coloration and of course based on actual genetic definitions.
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Troy Rexroth

Rextiles

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