> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 14:20:40 -0400
> From: Julie Bergman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Someone care to respond?
As other people have said, 'hypo' means less, fewer, under, while
'hyper' means more, higher or above.
I think your original question was whether 'tangerine' leos should
really be called 'hypo'. My understanding is that the leos called
hypomelanistic have fewer black spots and/or spotting over a smaller
area than the wild type. The extreme seems to be leos with spots only
on the head and tail. 'Tangerine' is supposed to be the condition
where the orange color sometimes found in patches on the tail appears
elsewhere on the body. Judging from the photos I see on the web, it's
possible that some of the animals being called tangerine are actually
very intense 'high yellows', or 'hyperxanthics', geckos with an
especially bright yellow base color, compared to the pale yellow or
beige base color of the wild type, but colors don't always appear
accurately in on-line images.
As for tangerines 'really' being hypomelanistics, it looks like most of
the tangerines breeders are producing are *also* hypomelanistics. This
is a reasonable thing for breeders to do, since the tangerine color
shows up best on an animal with less black. AFAIK, both the
'tangerine' and the 'hypomelanistic' appearance depend on many genes,
and the two traits are inherited independently. I don't know whether
there is a connection between 'tangerine' and 'high yellow', although
all the pictures I've seen of tangerine geckos have also been high
yellows. It would be interesting to know whether 'snow' and tangerine
could be combined. 'Snow' is hypoxanthism, animals with less yellow
than normal, approaching white base color in the extreme.
AFAIK, the only monogenic or simple Mendelian traits in leos are
albino, patternless and blizzard. I don't know if Tremper albinos
and Rainwater albinos are two separate traits, or different alleles
of the same gene.
If any of the above is out to lunch, anyone more knowledgable please
correct me. Most of my knowledge of leo genetics is second to nth
hand. I published some papers on fungal genetics long ago but since
then the organism I worked with has been thrown out of the fungal
kingdom!
###########################################################################
THE GLOBAL GECKO ASSOCIATION LISTSERV
WebSite: www.gekkota.com Archive: [EMAIL PROTECTED]/
The GGA takes no responsibility for the contents of these postings.
###########################################################################
