So, I know I have probably asked this before, but it's still bugging me. I'll also start by saying that I don't care what my snake is, she's my pain in the butt and I love her anyway. I'm also never planning to breed her so I know that I will never have a definitive answer to this question, however...
My girl Eir just keeps lightening up. She's looking more and more like a hypo every day. It really makes me wonder how genetics works here. Here's what I know:
She was sold as an aberrant California kingsnake.
I know somewhere in her genes she seems to have Newport locality because her markings are very clearly Newport.
Many Newport adults seem to lighten to a brown color, that still looks darker than hers. They also seem to have more yellow than she does.
She has blue grey eyes.
This is her today, in shed but fairly normal color in low lighting.
When she's in better lighting or sun, you can really see how pale her color is.
She has a milky sheen over her chocolate color that almost makes it look on the lavender side at times, though not that pale.
Very true representation of her color.
And this was her as a baby. A dark brown and offwhite or cream color.
I heard someone mention a 'dark hypo' once and they posted a pic that looked similar to Eir which has caused a lot of confusion for me.
I know hypo is the lack of, but not total erase of, melanin.
But what defines a hypo? What do you look for in a hypo? When can you decide if a snake is hypo?
My confusion here mostly lies in the fact that it looks like she'll eventually end up looking just like a hypo adult. However, I've been told that she's not hypo at all because she was dark as a baby. Is there some other gene at play here? Do kings usually lighten up THIS much because I haven't often seen it?
If two snakes look exactly the same as adults but one was born light and one was born darker, how do they genetically look so similar and yet one be a hypo and one be normal?
I really am honestly curious about how the genetics work here. Like I said, I like her anyway and I don't plan on breeding so I can't test out her genetics, I'm just curious how this works. Since I don't know and understand what's going on with her and it seems abnormal [if she were just lightening up to brown and yellow then I wouldn't be so surprised], and that makes me very curious. I've tried to research but I've come up empty, so help me out?
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