Salmon Hypo Boa Constrictors

Salmon Hypo is the name much of the trade uses for Rich Ihle's line of hypomelanistic boa constrictor. The gene removes most of the black from the animal and brings the warm colours forward. It is the hypo inside designer boas such as the Moonglow and the Sunglow.

Appearance

The Salmon Hypo has less black pigment than a normal boa. Because the dark dorsal saddles and flank diamonds are much reduced or nearly gone in some animals, the yellows, oranges and reds appear cleaner and brighter. This line is named for the pinkish salmon tone it shows, which is strongest in the tail and the saddles. Selecting within the line can produce very bright, clean snakes with no black markings at all. Super Salmon, the two-copy form, loses more pattern and black pigment than a single-copy animal.

Genetics

Salmon is a named line of the hypo gene, not a separate gene, and Orangetail is the other hypo line the trade names most often. Ihle built the Salmon line in the 1990s from stock traced to Panama. Ihle, Schuett and Hughes published the salmon mutation as autosomal incomplete dominant in the Journal of Heredity in 2000. One copy shows, while two copies produce the Super Salmon. Breeders tend to write the looser "co-dom". MorphMarket's Morphpedia disagrees and lists Salmon Hypo as a polygenic, line-bred trait separate from Hypo.

For this line, listings use Salmon Hypo and Pos Salmon Hypo. The gene in general is called Hypo, and the two-copy animal is the Super Hypo. Paired with albino it makes the Sunglow; with albino and anerythristic, the Moonglow.

Known issues

The two-copy form, Super Hypo, has a recorded musculature problem where the sides look like blown-out tyres. As far as anyone has documented, Super Hypos still breed and live normally. This concern relates to the super and not to a single-copy Salmon Hypo.