Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I have been trying to research certain aspects of colour morphs in bearded dragons and cannot find any definitive answers.
I have been trying to find out the exact differences in genetics between snow (dark nailed hypomelanistic), hypo(also dark nailed hypomelanistic)
hypo pastel (clear nailed hypomelanistic), pastel (also supposedly clear nailed hypomelanistic).
There is no argument that snows and hypo's are dark nailed. The problem lies with pastels and hypo pastels (which should be 100% hypo). From my research these should be clear nailed.

www.sandfiredragonranch.com/animals/index.html has a description of pastel dragons.

forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=728809,729636 This post has some interesting ideas on hypomelanism aswell, although I cannot quite work out the difference between hypo pastels and pastels, as a pastel is a hypomelanistic form of a red and gold dragon! Maybe INtheblue could email me - webmaster@pasteldragons.co.uk - so we can discuss this further.

The reason I am having to question the clear nails of a pastel is becuase of a reply to a PM I sent someone recently.

this is a quote from that PM

"Hi, i wrote an email to dragons den, this is there reply

"Hi- They are pastels...clear nails has nothing to do with the pastel bloodline, but is a separate, recessive trait that some (but only a small percentage) of the pastels happen to have. My pastel (a.k.a. hypomelanistic) trait is a dominant trait that shows in any offspring they produce so there will be far more without clear nails than with...Kevin""

Can anyone tell me exactly what clear nailed, supposedly hypo pastel dragons actually are? and if clear nails is only a trait in some pastel dragons then how can you truly tell they are pastel? Also surely if clear nails are not indicitive of being pastel then clear nailed dragons should have their own name so you can tell what they are????
am I just going mad from thinking about genetics for too long???

I really think it is time that there are some standard names for colour morphs so that the general public does not get conned into buying animals that are clearly not what they are supposed to be, and a simple way to check the defining points of these morphs. As a breeder I have been trying my hardest to research these problems myself, but have come up against too much conflicting information to be able to give a definitive solution on pastels and hypo pastels. At least snows are fairly simple..... lets just not start on leucistics lol

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