Reptile & Amphibian Forums

To brighten things up, here are few recent shots of some of the thayeri I own. The first is an '07 male I got from Bob Hansen, the second is an '07 female I got from Russ Bates, and the third is a close up of an '06 female I got from John Cherry (via Don Soderberg).

Here are two photos that show how one of my female thayeri has changed over the course of one year. Her yellow (second picture) has mellowed into a nice ivory/cream color (first picture) and she has remained pretty clean (i.e., little speckling so far). It's interesting to see how their colors change as they grow.

This is just my opinion but that yellow female is a hypo. The first three were stellar animals as well.

Thanks, Tony. I have taken a good, close look at the yellow female that you thought was hypo, and I think you could be correct. However, she does have many distinctly black scales as well as some scales that appear to be a mixture of black and red (sort of reddish brown). Because there are multiple genes for the production and deposition of melanin and other pigments, there must be "degrees" of hypomelanism. Perhaps this snake is slightly hypomelanistic. Note that she does not really appear to be hypo in the photo below, which was taken last year. Can hypomelanism develop over time?

I wonder what others in this forum might think -- anybody out there have a thayeri that looks to be possibly hypomelanistic?

Not the expert, but I think it is a nice animal with some reduced black not a hypo. But it would be nice to be wrong about that

The reason I think that is the black is very clear and bold, in most hypos (not thayeri) that I have seen the black is faded out everywhere you can see it.
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Herp Conservation Unlimited

Tonight I will try to take another picture or two that shows a close-up of the brownish scales in question. Stay tuned . . .

"Hypo" is a coined term and can mean many things and perhaps wasn't the best term to use. What caught my eye on this particular animal was the general reduction of pattern and pigment on the head. From the pic is looks very unusual!

while I agree that hypo can refer to many different styles of reduced black coloration or melanin I would not want to see the term start being used for line bred or polygenic traits.

Even though there have been many flavors of hypo in the past they all, at least to my knowledge, refered to monogenic traits. Sometimes it's recessive, sometimes co-dom or dom but always a single inheritable gene was responsible for it. In general I would say it is best to leave the term "phase" for any non-monogenic traits obviously excluding a combination of multiple monogenic traits.

just my two cents on terminology.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

Not a big fan of naming things before you know what the genetics are either. The need for test breeding is inferred but I think this particular animal has a trait that will prove to be heritable. In my experience most extreme examples are.

I got the sister to that Yellow male in the first picture. He is very nice.... and looks very similar to my White Leonis, Korben.

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Aubrey Ross

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