Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So this was sold to me as a ghost hondo, but looking at pics of the anery, I'm confused on the differences. They both look the same to me. Any suggestions/opinions? Thanks so much!

Ive been keeping and breeding all types of Hondurans and other milksnakes for many years, and some dark "tipped-up" ghosts are fairly hard to tell the difference sometimes from a nice light anerythristic just by sight alone of a pic.

Usually when a ghost has dark tipping, it will have it generally in the white inner ring of the triad(rings of three), and the rings that would normally be red or orange(now pinkish/gray)stay relatively clean, and many times even totally flawless, I have a few of these types of ghost, as well as "dirtier" tipped-up specimens. However depending on the hypo quality of the parents involved, and individuality of certain specimens, some can be VERY clean, and some NOT so clean, especially as the mature.

Degrees, and the cleanliness of the hypomelanism involved can range anywhere from a 1 to a 10, and most are also priced accordingly.

There are also MANY different shades and degrees of dark melanin tipping in anerythristics as well, and I have also had many different looks and degrees of each of these too, as well as many ghosts.

One key feature in identifying between the two when they get older that not too many people know about is to look for any signs of a remnant dark pigmentation in the shed skin. If you can see any hint of a ring pattern, and/or dark scale tipping in the shed when it is held up to a light source, then it is an anerythristic animal. If the shed is void of all signs of any ring pattern at all, it is a ghost(hypomelanism x anerythrism).

Without me knowing the age, or what the genetics where of that breeding that produced that snake, or even seeing the parents, I can only go by what it looks like phenotypically, and it looks much more like an anerythristic to me than a ghost because of the fairly heavy tipping in the RBR(red body rings).

In any case, look at the shed like I said, and this will tell you what the deal is immediately. It is EXTREMELY rare that a ghost shows ANY dark melanin remnant in it's shed, but there have been just a couple that I know of, and they were FAR more tipped up than yours is.

Anyway, I'm pretty confident it's an anery, but do the shed test, this will prove 99.9% if it is an anery or a ghost.

best regards, ~Doug

a zero tipped, very wide-banded ghost hatchling

a ghost with darker black rings, but pure white inner rings and some dark random speckles

ghost with lots of white ring tipping, but virgin clean RBR(red body rings)and dark rings

ghost with lighter dark rings, but heavily tipped

two adult ghosts breeding

a very dark tipped-up anery with eggs

a VERY clean 12 year old adult

very clean pin-banded semi-vanished ghost

very clean pink anery hatchling

some very nice '09 ghost hatchlings of different types

A very exceptional light pin-banded slightly vanished ghost hatchling

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"