PICTURES- Hypo Checkereds!

[BUSHSNAKE]

yes and so are corn snakes..ha ha

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

is it just me or is every cb checkered het for albino? lol.

this is generally true! sadly.... but I do have a pair of cbb adults that are supposedly not het for albino. Exactly why I got them in the first place.... we will see when Marcy has her babies! I should not be getting any albinos out of that breeding! And yes, Joe brings up a good point, hypo can mean reduced amounts of any pigments, not just melanin....

[BUSHSNAKE]

your phone is off nucklehead!

[ConcinusMan]

What the? I swear sometimes you say the darndest things out of the blue.

[Spankenstyne]

LOL! Love the random mid convo statements.

I think that pastel is probably the best interpretation so far. I hadn't even thought of it that way not being a ball python guy myself (but I know far too many that are ).

I've been keeping some non albinos back to try and breed it out of them and propogate this pastel/hypo/light phase along with the more normal wild types. The albinos are very nice especially as adults but I prefer the more natural look.

[Jeff B]

Shannon, I totally agree pastel would be a better desciption IMHO, and again that is also a statement that I made on the Reptile Radio show as well, so maybe we should just make the change, what the hell?lol
I find it very interesting that you produced 1/2 offspring like that, and that there are no "inbetweeners" but I think it would be good to do some more breeding before you call in dominant, just to be 100% sure the other parent wasn't an unknown het which would yeild the same results, it's clearly an inheritable trait either way, but I would want to do the full homework myself, especially since it is a small sample size, just my 2 cents though.

Hypo doesnt always mean "hypomelanistic". Snakes that have an "overall" reduced coloration are usually just called "hypo"

I don't really see reduced coloration, I see increased color especially yellow like on a pastel ball python, plus the black is more intense, and also some slight pattern change too, having said that its possible that it is the apperance of increased color due to stripping an overlaid dullness or layer of pigmentation away, but I'm not sure I believe this is the case, but certainly more detailed science based lab studies would give real clarification, we are really just guessing.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Haha! Richard, Joe is talking to me... Because he is right my phone is off! It has been off for a few days... I'll call ya when it's back on and I'm not working!

[Spankenstyne]

Gotta love the written word eh? Haha... So am I mistaken, Do you mean the light type ones as being pastel while the ones in your original post here being an example of hypo? That's how I was understanding but now Jeff's post has me befuddled, do you instead mean the ones in the first post as being pastel?... It was a long day at work what's left of my brain shut off hours ago

Either way I agree we're just guessing, more breeding should hopefully help clarify. For what it's worth I'm also seeing about half being the lighter ones I have with no tweeners in a couple of litters so far.

[ConcinusMan]

Wow, I really started something by suggesting they are not "hypo" and heck, I'm a newcomer to all of this. The people here that greeted me when I joined know this. But, it did occur to me, if the snake is "hypo" then it's "hypo" what? Hypomelanistic? can't be.. there are normal very black areas... hypoerythristic? (I have a concinnus that fits that description, it's spots are sort of yellow) No. No red on a normal checkered. Those just don't seem to fit so I don't think they are hypo anything.

Just different. Call it something else, but I wouldn't call it "hypo" either. I think I like "pastel" better. That is a better description.

You can call them "mud" as far as I'm concerned. I want one.

[Spankenstyne]

I think most of us have questioned the label of hypo all along, we're just going along with what has been put forward.
"Hypo" is usually referring to hypomelanistic unless stated otherwise.

Hypomelanism can manifest itself in different ways than we'd expect. Look at Honduran Milksnakes, some of the hypos look pretty much normal with the black as dark as ever and all the bands and pattern there, it's the reds that seem brighter because of the lessened black affecting the red portions and the normal tipping. Here's an example of a hypo Honduran Milk


Then you have the Extreme end in them where the black is actually greyed out like here:

Both pictures are hypomelanistic

So in theory it could be possible to manifest itself in a similar way with these guys and still have pretty much the same blacks in the pattern but the black tones within the olive portions being reduced making them look brighter & cleaner green.
I still don't believe that's likely the case, but just putting it out there to the point that we can't absolutely say no these aren't hypomelanistic just because they still have black patterns.

I do think that we're looking at something more along the lines of pastel as Shannon suggested. My confusion in the above post is in regards to which snakes Jeff means, is it the crazy light ones Shannon posted or is it the light green ones some of us have?
I do think the ones in the first post should be referenced as being different