Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'd like to get some opinions from those of you that have hypos/ghost. I picked up a female that has a different look. Her color looks similar to a ghost male that I had last year. Her head looks very similar to a green ghost. Lots of green color showing through and light. The shed on the right is from one of my normal adult females. The shed on the left is from the female in question. I've got an '05 male ghost and have compared his shed. Clear as expected but if you look closely there is a very faint pattern from his dorsal area. His shed looks just similar to the one in the pics on the left side. I know the bottom line is "breed it and prove it out". So this is just for fun.
thanks in advance
John Q

I had one like that earlier this year, they are just a wannabe ghost, they are VERY nice looking, mine was also green and you couldn't see pattern in the shed till days later.

Thanks
Pythoner

All ghosts shed clear, although, if the shed skin is held upto the light a faint pattern is still visible. I would say that there is a good chance you have a ghost.......just not a very "good" ghost. The more extreme the ghost the less pattern in the shed. IMHO ghosts are caused by an increase in yellow in the outer layer of skin. This would explain the clear sheds as the yellow is masking the blacks, browns and whites. With a ghost that has less yellow pigment in the outer layer (such as a green ghost) you would expect the shed to not be as "clear" as say an Orange Ghost.

All ghosts have so far been proven genetic. I haven't heard of anyone having an animal that sheds clear (ghost) that hasn't been genetic in origins. I do know that most lines of ghosts are compatable, although, their are a couple lines out there that aren't.

So, breed your guy out to see what you get. Hopefully with successive generations your ghost will get better and better.

Regards,
Corey
PS Post a pic

I have talked with some people that have had what they thought to be ghosts that shed clear, only to find out after a couple of tries with line breeding that it wasn't genetic, or at least not a simple recessive trait...so there are some out there, but I would still say the vast majority (99%) prove out to be genetic. Seems to be a pretty common trait in the wild, lots of CH and WC ghosts out there.

A picture of the actual snake might help. I have had at least one snake that has shed clear one time and then every other time shed with pattern, so that is always a possibility too.

I've seen a few of those ones that shed clear once and then stop. This girl was one of those black and white ones (not sure if she hatched that way or not) that shed clear and then gradually got more pigment in her shed and more odd yellow and lots more black to look at.

I've also seen and heard of a couple of het ghosts that shed clear but don't know if they kept doing it consistently (apparently most het ghosts don't shed clear).

When I mentioned shedding clear I meant animals that always shed clear.

Corey

Have you run across any het ghosts that shed clear and did they keep it up? The one het where I saw the clear shed in person the keeper hadn't noticed it before so maybe I'll drop him a line to see if he has kept watching to see if it is still shedding clear.