Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have heard of hypos, then I have heard clear nail hypo, then I have heard that only clear nails are hypo??? I'm so very confused. So how do you know you have a hypo dragon? I have a female who is very lightly colored, and when she's in a light "mood" she has no black, but she has dark nails. When she darkens up she does get dark grey on her. I have been seeing so many "hypos" on the market that look just like my dragon.
Thanks
Sarah

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FireDrake Exotics
www.FireAndLilac.com

Sarah,

The hypo/snow line of dragons do not have clear nails but, in my opinion, are definately affected by a form of hypomelanism. It is my opinion that the hypo/snows have a defect in the dermal melanophores and are unable to produce melanin in the dermis ( or outer layer of skin). Melanophores are what makes the animal able to produce black pigment. There are to sets of melanophores in reptiles the dermal and epidermal. Completely seperate from oneanother.

In the hypo-pastels (clear-nailed hypos) the defect is complete and there is little to no black pigment in the animal. That is why the nails are clear, they don't darken at all generally, and if they do it's minimal. In my opinion these are true hypomelanistic animals.

As far as your beardie goes... It could be anything... There is realy no way of telling unlkess you know the background your dragon came from. I beleive it appears to be a sandfire X hypo/snow cross but that is NOT TO SAY IT IS.... Appearances can be decieving and you should never call a dragon something if your not sure where it came from. Especially if you plan on breeding it. Hope this helps you understand the hypomelanistic trait a bit better. If you are intrigued as I was about the genetic traits, check out the book called Reptile and Amphibian Variants by H. Bernard Bechtell... Excellant book! Also if you jump over to the genetics forum there are a couple sites from there you can follow to find out more as well.
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Great spirits have always been recieved with violent opposition by mediocre minds. Albert Einstein

First of all, you must see the sandfire ranch pastels and dragons den pastels as different lines.
I mean, just because they share the same name doesn't mean that they have the same genetic makeup.

As i recall correctly the sandfire ranch put the first clearnailed dragons on the market named pastel.
What follows is that some other breeders used the same name for dragons that just had less amound of dark pigment but had dark nails.

So different genetic makeup but the same label.
I think this is why kevin says that the clear nails have nothing to do with pastels.
This is true if you look at his pasteldragon line, but the sandfire ranch pastels must have clear nails.

Second: Names are names and doesn't give the genetic makeup of a dragon.
Hypomelanistic does, because it's a name that is commonly used in genetics and stands for a genetic defect to the melanophores.

There are probably a couple of fenotypic hypo's wich are no genotipic hypo's, but thats something else.
There is one type proven to be true hypomelanistic and that is the clearnaild hypo.
It doesn't matter from what breeder the hypo comes from and what nem the breeder put on it, they are true hypomelanistic
Now there could be a second type of hypo, that has dark nails and no to little dark pigment in the skin.
Don't know if tis is already has been proven yet, but it sounds like there is another type of hypomelanism out there.

What to name one type or the other is not up to me, but they are different and should not carry the same name.

Duncan
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edited sig file; oversized graphic [phw 12/13/04]

np
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edited sig file; oversized graphic [phw 12/13/04]