Hypo/Ghost questions

[Joe_Compel]

Well starting to think ahead to next year's purchase and Mike's getting really interested in hypo's (thanks to Adam's raving about them LOL).

Thinking ahead to next year's purchases.......sounds like you have got the bp bug......bad. Adam has some great animals, I am sure you won't be disappointed.

First off, is it proper to call them Hypos or Ghosts....seems to be they are called both on different sites.

In many other reptiles species that are "morphed out" breeders work towards producing a designer morph called a ghost......it is a cross between an axanthic and a hypo or an anerythristic and a hypo. In the ball python world, keepers refer to this as the "true ghost".
The confusion started when the first hypo balls were called ghosts due to their ghostly appearance. I like to call them hypos because I know the double homozygous ghost will be produced one day (AKA - the "true ghost").

Secondly, there seems to be Green, Orange, Yellow, Butterscotch, Blonde and White (Desert) Hypo's. Have I missed any? Or are some of those names just different names for the same morph?

I have seen all of those names tacked onto hypos. The problem is that there are no "set boundaries" between the colors. When you see enough of them, you can say.....yep, that is a green hypo or that is a yellow. NERD has a line that is ORANGE. However, it isn't always that clear......sometimes what one person calls a green hypo looks like an old yellow hypo to me. I call my hypos butterscotch hypos because to me they are not quite yellow or orange but rather a blend of the two.
I have a feeling that the colors and lines will be more easily distinguished as breeders work to refine the colors.
I am sure will see new colors added to this list as there are some neat animals lurking around that may fit into the hypo category...........
Desert ghosts appear to be a different mutation than traditional hypos.

Next and very confusing to me. Are some lines or colors of hypo's not able to breed "true" with other lines/colors? Seems I read on the NERD site about that and the breeding only produced normals instead of the desired recessive trait being expressed.

At this point, it seems most are compatible and it seems that you can "mix colors". However, there have been a handful of "hypo" breedings that did not produce hypos. I know a couple of these breedings involved a parent that was a questionable hypo.......my guess is that these questionable hypos were not hypos but some new morph that has a subtle difference than a hypo.
I know Greg Graziani has a line that is not compatible with the traditional hypos.

I have seen Hypo's referred to as a must have, "foundation" type morph (much as pastels are and one of the reasons we are purchasing our pastel from Adam). Is this because the hypo crosses so well into other morphs, for example the Hypo Mojave, the Pastel Ghost, etc.?

Big time......the hypo gene has a lot to bring to the table.

Is it correct to say that the breeding of a Hypo into another morph lightens or "blurs" the color/pattern somewhat?

I wouldn't say it blurs the pattern but it has the potential to change the colors.

Do all hypo's have a clear shed and is this an identifier for this morph?

Yep.

What in heck is a "True Ghost"?????

Take a look at Willy's hypo........imagine erasing the yellow tones......that's what a true ghost might look like.
You would have to breed a hypo to an axanthic to produce double hets. Breed the double hets together and if you hit the 1 in 16 shot you could produce the true ghost.