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The science of morphs, or lack there of

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Posted by: chuckhurd at Sun Nov 16 13:19:27 2008   [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by chuckhurd ]  
   

One of the problems we run into in the morph world is that there is no accepted absolute. 10 people could look at a snake and call it 10 different things and who is to say which is right? i wouldn't call this snake Dan posted an albino, but i wouldn't call any of these cottons an albino. lets take for example hypo, which is short for hypomelanistic. that means "reduction in dark pigments." i posted a photo some time back of a cotton that had no black, only green and light brown. i used the term hypo, which is by all means scientifically correct, but i was immediately corrected by the "morph naming council." seems the contemporary school of thought is, a snake must give off a completely clear and patternless shed to be considered hypo. well, i don't necessarily hold to that idea, but how do you debate it? i say the snake is hypo, someone else says it isn't and the two will never agree. to me, an ablino should lack all dark pigment, meaning pink eyes, ect. animals that still hold some dark pigments, such as these cottons, some timbers, and coppers are labeled as T or Carmel albino. seems to me there should be another name used on them, other then albino, as there is a long standing accepted idea of what albino is. same with hypo. seems to me the others should be called "clear shed" or something as there has been a long standing idea of what hypo is. the hypo boas have been around for years, that is an accepted idea of hypo, but yet they do not produce a clear shed....so, by the new school of thought, they are no longer hypo? i guess the point being, if dan and his expert, whom i probably should know personally if he owns these snakes, want to call this a T albino, then its a T albino, there is no way to prove otherwise.
Chuck Hurd Serpentology


   

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>> Next Message:  RE: The science of morphs, or lack there of - TOM_CRUTCHFIELD, Sun Nov 16 14:17:48 2008

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