Green Hypo Hognoses
The Green Hypo has less black pigment in its hognose, which creates a mottled and paler look that is most visible on the belly. While breeders disagree on if it is a true single-gene super or a selectively bred colour line, the two-copy form, nicknamed Watermelon, is even more colourful and greener.
About the Green Hypo gene
The Green Hypo is one of the several hypomelanistic lines of the western hognose. It is sold and catalogued separately from the Evans (Dutch) Hypo and True Hypo lines. Because it has less black pigment, the animal looks mottled and paler. This line is bought by keepers for the softer contrast against the usual dark blotching of a hognose. They also buy it for the greener, more colourful two-copy form bred from it.
Appearance
A Green Hypo with a single-copy has a mottled belly instead of a solid one, a reduced dorsal pattern, and less black than a normal hognose. It is greener and more colourful with grey elsewhere and green and yellow tones through the pattern in the two-copy form, which is nicknamed Watermelon.
Genetics
The catalogue family includes Green Hypo and its two-copy form, Super Green Hypo, which is also traded as Watermelon by the hobby. Whether that two-copy form is a single gene's true homozygous super, like the supers of Arctic or Anaconda, or a further-refined line within a polygenic, selectively bred colour trait is not settled. Green Hypo is sold and catalogued away from other hypomelanistic genes of the hognose, which are the separate recessive mutations True Hypo and Evans (Dutch) Hypo. Watermelon has been bred into other named combinations as well.