Ha, well I sure don't have all the answers on this but here goes:

Many Hog is. boas are very speckled and have muted or darkish areas that can be called melanism. So referring to all Hog is. boas as hypomelanistic would only be true if you were saying it in comparison to a dark mainland boa or an occidentalis.. of course most any boa is hypomelanistic compared to an Argentine boa. And that's the point I was making, hypomelanism is relative. It simply means less melanism.

A lot of people specifically interested in this trait have decided to have it mean something more.. an inheritable genetic trait that reduces and disperses black pigment in certain ways. That's great for them and even a morph-dummy like me can see there are certain characterictic ways in which genetic hypomelanism is expressed... but simply from a standpoint of word usage any boa with obviously less black than is usual for that type or locality of boa is hypomelanistic..

Personally I think that once you breed a boa to the point that it is not recogniseable as being a certain type or locality all labels are off it anyway, except for the one's you put on it... For instance, what would be the obvious or visible differences between a Snow-Suriname and a Snow-Brazilian? That's an extreme example, but some where between that and a super-hypo-hog lies the question.. are extreme inbred morphs, even of a known locality line, still actually locality animals?

How's that for a new subject! And NO. I am not starting a locality vs morph war....

Gus

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