Not a Hypo?

[N2TORTS]

Here is a great example of a light colored Redfoot , sometimes seen mis-labled as a Hypo but with time/age will eventually darken up.
(All 3 pics below is the same tortoise) the 4th pic is our Hypo line #a






Young Hypo

 

[wellington]

Very interesting Jeff. I bet there are a few disappointed people out there thinking they got a hypo. I wouldn't have thought it was. If the darker marking between the scutes in the first pic a sure sign? If not, how could one tell?

 

[immayo]

My T Rex started out very light like that as well but is now filling in black!

 

[N2TORTS]

Very interesting Jeff. I bet there are a few disappointed people out there thinking they got a hypo. I wouldn't have thought it was. If the darker marking between the scutes in the first pic a sure sign? If not, how could one tell?

Barb ............After working with our hypomelanistic tortoises for several years, we believe that there are at least 2 different hypomelanistic forms prevalent within our group.
Hypomelanistic is defined simply as a "reduction of dark pigment (melanin) when compared to a wild specimen". Hypomelanism is a genetic trait that typically results in a variable reduction of black/brown pigment, usually allowing the underlying colors to become more visual even throwing a variance in your standard coloring Ex. Scale coloring. Hypomelanistic is thought to be closely related to amelanistic.
. With a “true” hypomelanistic these animals have nearly have white/ clear nails and display little to almost no melanin at hatching - There is no radical development/darkening involved within it’s first few months/years.Again,true hypomelanistic tortoises look distinctly different right out of the egg.
Our hypo adults and hatchlings are recessive hypomelanistic animals bred from “pure” lineage that will breed true to the Punnett Square. Since 2006, through selective breeding we have been keeping this mutation pure stock.(thus the hypo baby pics I share in this forum) With an outstanding year in 2013 with Hypo hatchlings, we have chosen to let our hypo male breed to many of our colored lines that should produce some outstanding colored offspring that don’t show any dark pigment. However, this is not always the case. Remember that the hypomelanistic gene is a variable one. Contrary to popular belief, Hypos can have an array of variances’ that can and will still produce variable amounts of melanin.One of the hook ….line …and sinkers…for me …” ya just never know what to expect…other than a kick *$$ Hypo baby”
So how can you tell if you truly have a Hypo adult? The only way to know 100% without inbreeding is to breed it to a tortoise of unrelated stock that is proven to carry the recessive hypomelanistic gene and look at the resulting offspring.

Although rare, just because an adult animal has clear nails and does'nt show much dark pigmentation, this does not mean that it carries the recessive hypomelanistic mutation we are discussing. Tortoises can have similar phenotypes, but different genotypes. There are many lines of tortoises with some clear nails that also look hypomelanistic. (We believe some of these are hypomelanistic . If such animals with some clear nails are bred together, eventually it is possible to produce an adult animal that looks hypomelanistic with clear nails and it not be the recessive hypomelanistic. This is a combination of line-bred traits that will not reproduce true to the Punnett Square

 

[kathyth]

This is extremely interesting, Mr. Jeff!!! I had no idea this happened!
What a science. 😊😊