>>Terry couldn't it also be said production of albino and hypos also reduces appriciation of wild forms?



It could be said.



But the color morphs are variations that can occur in nature: The hondo that bill love bought and that eventually produced the first hypos was wild caught; ditto the anerythristic hondo that all the current anerys & snows and ghosts are descendents of. The first amel red rats were wild caught. I'm not sure of the histories of the various color morphs of other kings or milks or other colubrids, but i think you get the idea. I think it's reasonable (or would have been reasonable in the recent past) for grayband afficionados to hope someone might someday run across an amel specimen in the wild: It's possible, and it would be "real", naturally occurring. Replicating it in captivity by properly managing the gene resource would be very similar to any of the other natural selection processes breeders have used to breed chain kings to their liking or breooksi with optimal red or yellow, etc., except that the morphs you refer to are simpler, simple recessives. Part of my concern over the proliferation of hybrids is that if/when that first amel grayband is found it will be very hard to convince any one it "is what it is" rather than the product of, for example, a ruthveni x alterna cross. Eventually the same will be true if/when someone turns a piece of tin and finds the first amel or anery coastal plains milk, let's say--authentication becomes almost impossible, at least until DNA tests become so readily available and inexpensive that sorting out the real from the not real is a simple process.



peace

terry

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