Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,

From what I noticed, the salmons are really brilliant red/salmon colored, hypos have a lack of black and the pastels have a kind of washed-out pink going on. What is REALLY the difference specifically?

Thanks in advance!

Stevo

You are somewhat close, hypos are a co-dominant or partially dominant morph, whatever the correct term is now. Anyway by that I mean that if you breed them to a normal, you should get 50% hypos, 50% normals. Yes, some of there characteristics are the lessening of melanin, and also abberant patterns and sometimes heightened color.
Salmons are a line of hypos produced by Rich Ihle or produced from his stock.
Pastels are line bred "normals" bred to reduce the level of black in the animal, a side effect is often enhanced color. These were selectively bred by Jeff Ronne. They are not a morph though, but I like them better than the hypos, I believe they tend to keep their lighter color better as adults.

Hope I could help, Chris Canada-Smith

I would say that salmon is produced by a dominant mutant gene. A boa with a salmon mutant gene paired with a normal gene (a heterozygous salmon) shows lessening of melanin, and also abberant patterns and sometimes heightened color. These snakes produce 1/2 salmon and 1/2 normal when bred to a normal boa. A homozygous salmon (AKA super salmon, super hypo), with a pair of salmon mutant genes, may or may not show color and pattern changes from normal that are more extreme than those of the heterozygous salmon.

Rich named his snakes' mutant "salmon". Hypomelanistic is often used as a synonym of "salmon", but it should be considered a catch-all category for any mutant or combination of mutants that reduce the amount of melanism present. Until someone formally names a different mutant "hypomelanistic". So salmon is a hypomelanistic mutant, but not all hypomelanistic snakes are salmons.

IMHO, whether pastels are a morph depends on how you define the word "morph".

Then there are orange tail boas (orange tail hypos?) that may or may not be produced by the salmon mutant gene. Nobody has proved it either way, and the origin of Rich Ihle's original salmon boa is unclear enough that, as far as I know, nobody can say whether the two lines came from the same stock. But they seem to have a reduced amount of melanin when compared to normal boas.

And there are the so-called "tyrosinase positive albinos" that also show a reduction of melanin. I don't know how many lines there are or the mode of inheritance.

Paul Hollander

I have to disagree that the hypo gene is dominant and whatever the correct scientific name is, the co-dominant hypo is not the heterozygous form of the hypo, it does not work the same way as a recessive.
The orange tail line are Jeff Gee's line of hypo's and constitute almost every hypo that isn't a salmon.
As far as the hypo name being used, I am sure there is a completely scientific name for every morph out there, but it wouldn't be as much fun as coming up with names. So yes there may be an actual genetic hypomelanistic boa out there somewhere but I don't think thst the hypo was wrongly name, at the time that was one that fit.

Chris

>I have to disagree that the hypo gene is dominant and whatever the correct scientific name is, the co-dominant hypo is not the heterozygous form of the hypo, it does not work the same way as a recessive.

Questions:
1) By "co-dominant hypo" do you mean a snake with a salmon mutant gene paired with a normal gene?

If the answer is yes, then such a snake fits the standard genetics definition of "heterozygous". Check a genetics text.

2) Does a boa with a salmon mutant gene paired with a normal gene look normal? And can a person spend 5 minutes looking at pictures and then separate salmons (with a salmon mutant gene paired with a normal gene) from homozygous salmons (with two salmon mutant genes) with 90% accuracy.

If the answers are no and no, then salmon fits the standard genetics definition of a dominant mutant gene. Again, check a genetics text. I agree; salmon does not work the same way as a recessive mutant gene because (IMHO) it is dominant to the normal gene and not recessive to the normal gene.

>As far as the hypo name being used, I am sure there is a completely scientific name for every morph out there, but it wouldn't be as much fun as coming up with names. So yes there may be an actual genetic hypomelanistic boa out there somewhere but I don't think thst the hypo was wrongly name, at the time that was one that fit.

I think that "hypomelanistic" could have been an appropriate name for the mutant that Rich Ihle worked with. But as I understand it, he wanted to separate his mutant from other mutant genes that also reduce the amount of melanin in the skin. So he put the name "salmon" on the mutant gene's equivalent of a birth certificate. When someone puts "hypomelanistic" on a different mutant gene's birth certificate, there will be an official hypomelanistic mutant gene. I don't think that anyone has done that yet.

Paul Hollander