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I have asked this question a few times (not here), but never really gotten an answer. the background story - I have been looking at hypos and sunglows for some time now. periodically, I see a specimen (in person, or pics) that I'm just not sure about...something being labeled as a hypo that doesn't look like one, for example; or an albino that I would swear is a sunglow.
So, my question is: what exactly does one look at when deciding if a boa is "hypo" or not?, especially regarding the not so obvious ones. I just don't want to make a mistake when the time comes to sell future offspring.

well first, i would have to say that hypos are a visual morph that seems to be pretty apparent when viewing the animal. the only case where i could see someone possibly having trouble is with say a hypo nic., but even then i would say when compared to a normal nic. the hypo is obvious.
sunglows on the other hand are a bit more difficult to determine. there are often cases of nicely colored albinos appearing to look like a sunglow. the only way i would think to determine visually would be to look for the reduction of the 'would be black' pigment around the tail area. on albinos, you can see a slight difference in color between the surrounding area and the area that would be black if the animal were not albino. this should be reduced in a sunglow just as it is in a hypo. the only true way to determine would be to breed the animal. hope this helps some, but i find the more you look at different animals, the easier it is to visually distinguish them (sunglow from an albino etc).

in your case i am assuming you will be producing a litter with albinos and sunglows. i would think that compared to one another, you should be able to tell the difference visually when you accualy have the litter in front of you.

I had felt fairly confident that faced with a litter of neonates, I would be able to differentiate...until I began seeing some animals listed as hypos that, to my eye, just weren't. I saw enough of them, in a short enough time period, that I began to question myself (not wanting to believe that there were that many people that were either trying to rip somebody off, or just plain unaware). In the case of the sunglows, the ones I am speaking about just SCREAMED sunglow. The patterning was comparable to that of a high quality salmon or super; the overall hue was pink, with the saddles being very deep red; lighter coloring on the tail, esp around the markings. Unfortunately, I had recently made some large expenditures and did not feel comfortable further depleting my cash reserves...I would have bought all 3 of them.
Thank you for your response

maybe you could link some of the pictures of hypos you are not sure about. i have not seen any hypos that i know of that did not look hypo, except for some nics as i had said before. this is interesting to me since i am hoping to breed some hypos soon.

sunglows like i said before can be chalanging to me. a good thing to do if you are not sure is to look at the parents if possible. most of the time neither of the parents are a sunglow and therefore one must be a hypo in order to produce hypos. if a parent is hypo and you think the offspring is hypo then there is about a 50% chance you are right depending on a few other factors. only problem here is that you say you are having a difficult time determining some hypos.

please if you can, post pictures and or links to 'hypos' that you do not believe to be hypos. maybe we can straigten things out.

What do you guys think of this one. I know what it is. Just curious what other people think. Notice the reduced black around the tail saddles. Have fun.

Matt

this is what i was trying to get going haha ...

forgive me if i am wrong ... i would have to say that it is a red pastel maybe, but not a hypo.
the reason for my decision is that from what i have seen, there is a complete absence of black boardering around the lower tail blotches in hypos shortly after the base of the tail. almost as if the tail did not belong to the body.
it deffinately looks that way (tail not belonging) with my little girl ...

You are right, it is a pastel. However, a lot of F1 hypos have black banding further up the tail. Some are hard to tell.

very beautiful pastel by the way.
i some what understand what your saying .. but from ym genetics background f1 simply means any two unrelated animals offspring. f2 would be the litter produced by breeding an f1 sibling to another f1 sibling. if two unrelated animals were bred, lets say two high end hypos, your claim about tail banding would most likely not be true.
on the other hand if by f1, you ment a hypo bred to a normal, then i can completely understand your statement. much easier to convey a message without using terms like f1 online, since they are not universally understood.

please dont take any of that as putting you down or anything, just trying to spread some more information. you are deffinately right, that many hypos can be difficult to distinguish. that beautiful pastel is a great example, but i find the easiest way to tell is to look for some tail blotches without the black boarder. thanks again for the picture.

glad I stopped back - I didn't get the notification of replies. Unfortunately, I can't post pics of the ones I questioned because I either saw them in person or didn't save the pics. Matt, that is a beautiful snake. I must admit that at first glance, I was thinking hypo - but when I actually looked at it I realized that it probably wasn't. My issue was more regarding some snakes that were labeled as hypos that I just didn't think were. And given the number of people that I still see advertising "beautiful pink boas, het for hypo", and similar, I cannot discount the possibility that they really weren't. I have all the ones I need for my own projects...but I want to make sure that I don't misidentify future offspring. I don't want to be that guy, lol. anyway, I'm hoping that since I went with high quality, it will be pretty obvious who is what. If there are any other hints to what to look for, I'm still looking.

All Hypomelanistic by definition genetically signifies a lighter color or reduced Melanin. People do look at the tail for evidence of reduced black, but this is ultimately NOT the make or brake clue that signifies a hypo in my opinion, and is more of a "brand" trait. Matt's snake has dramatically reduced Melanin compared to a "wild type" Bci (assuming its a bci, like the salmon brand/flavor of hypo) and by definition is defiantly considered a hypo. In other words I think hypo refers to a comparison between a wild-type and another specimen from the same SPECIFIC locale as the "wild type". So goes my point, A nic hypo (bci) may have more Melanin/dark pigmentation than a clean bcc or bci for that matter, but is still considerd a hypo within the nic locale. Hoggs are a natural dom./homozygous hypo compared to other species of bci's ,but might not considered hypo when compared to other hoggs assuming its not a "pale" hogg like the ones that have been selectively bred. When it comes to appearance as a factor for owning/breeding a snake , I personally go for a certain look.. Call em' what ya want boas. Yes some are hypos and some are not... but if you don't find the snake attractive or what it can potentially produce as attractive, then why buy the snake. Also Try to determine if your dealing with hypos, doms, or co-doms from blood line and apperence info. I know if I got some co-doms of a certain genetic trait then I got a good shot of producing the all coveted super or Homozygous condition of a specific morph. Which can be exaggerated form of the co-dom morph. If I have a dominant morph then I assume all the offspring will show the color/pattern trait of that morph. I'm thinking(correct me if I'm wrong) that normal "wild types" are a dominant color/pattern trait. So breeding a homozygous or super hypo w/ a "wild type" should theoretically produce all offspring being a mix of the two.. assuming they are not both het for another specific trait. My point is... it should be about what YOU like. don't just focus on the current snake market, the market will change and so will the prices, by the time most of us produce "the popular" morph through breeding. I do pay attention to pricing of morphs, because I like to compare supply or rarity of , and the demand for a named or unnamed trait when choosing a snake. As you do it may become clear that some morphs are undervalued and some may be over priced. Just depends on how bad you want them or when your house payment is due. Then comes the fun part SELECTIVE breeding..

Sorry for the rambling.. hope it helps.
chris

Thanks for the response. I pretty much understand the genetics of it, my concern (again) was largely with not misidentifying future offspring. I have seen a few albinos that were pinkish white, with very intense red (salmonish, in pattern) markings - I would not have hesitated to call them sunglows...but apparently, I would have been wrong. They were, in fact listed as sunglow siblings. I would have loved to have seen the sunglows from that litter, if these were ONLY albinos, lol. In any event, I will probably not be looking for any more stock for myself - I have albino females, and a poss super, poss het albino female; as well as 2 hypo (one poss super), het albino males. I just don't like looking at snakes and wondering if my perception of them is incorrect or if the seller is trying to rip people off (even if unintentionally through his own ignorance). While I would be disappointed to learn I had mistakenly sold a sunglow as an albino, my error would not adversely affect my customer. If I did the reverse, though, and called an albino a sunglow (and sold it as such), I will have effectively ripped that person off. Therein lies the whole purpose of this thread...seeking identification tips.