Quote:
I'm 99% certain that the orange, butterschotch, and green ghost hypos are all compatable.
|
If they are all compatible, then that would mean the same gene is responsible for the three "types".
That leads to the question of what determines which form the gene will take? Is it dependant on the pigmentation of the animal? By that I mean the shades of color the snake would have if not for the presence of the hypo gene.
Something has to govern whether the gene will result in a snake bearing a butterscotch tone, or what have you, if the same gene is responsible for all three forms.
If this is the case, then would it not be possible to produce any of the three types from a single snake depending on what additional color genes were present in the offspring. Meaning that depending on what it was bred to, could a "butterscotch" not at some point produce a "green"?
I admit to pretty much ignoring this morph when it was first marketed. This was largely due to what was in my opinion the misuse of the term ghost. I assumed it was just another attempt at a clever marketing term used by those who apparently have made a career out of assigning a morph name to every ball python they bring in from Africa.
Now we know it is inheritable, but I am still of the opinion that ghost is an improper term.
I still do not follow the morph very closely and am not completely familiar with what standard would be used to determine which type one would be classified as. This standard would increase in importance if all three of these hypos are 100% compatible.