Calling them Ghost or Hypo!

[muddoc]

Why is it that with all other sub-species of snake mutations, a ghost is an homozygous double recessive Hypo and Axanthic/Anerythristic and yet, with ball pythons, they are clearly Hypo and yet people still refer to them as ghost?

Didn't Dan and Colette name their double-homo Hypo/axanthic ''The Ghost'', shouldn't the old discontinued Barker term ''Ghost'' for Hypos be given up and properly use the accepted term ''Hypo''...

Curious to see what others think?

I just wanted to clarify one statement in your original post. Ghost in other species does not always refer to Double Recessive mutations. In Boas, Hypomelanism is dominant, and therefor a Ghost Boa is a Double mutation containing recessive and dominant traits. It could also be stated that a Ghost Boa could be a Heterozygous/Homozygous mutation, because a Ghost could be made from an Anerythristic (homozygous) and a Hypo (Heterozygous), since the Hypo gene is sometimes stated as a co-dominant. However, some believe that the Heterozygous and Homozygous forms are sometimes indistiguishable, which would mean that it is a truly dominant animal.

On the note of Ball Pythons, I have always called my Hypos just that, as I have long wanted to create a "True Ghost". I believe that a Hypomelanistic animal should be called just that (however, noone has actually had a hypo tested to se if it really produces a reduced amount of melanin).

Hope that shed some light on something,