Green Phase Hognoses
Green Phase names western hognoses with an olive or khaki wash over the usual sandy, blotched pattern, heavier in some animals than others. It comes from selecting and pairing the greenest stock rather than one identifiable trait, so a hatchling's colour depends on its lineage and is never guaranteed.
About the Green Phase gene
Green Phase is the name hognose keepers give to a western hognose snake showing an olive or khaki cast over its normal sandy, dark-blotched pattern. The green does not replace the pattern the way an albino gene does; it sits over the top of it, warming the ground colour while the blotches, head markings and belly checkering stay in place. Keepers want it for that softer, mossier look on an otherwise ordinary-patterned snake, and because good examples are still uncommon enough to stand out in a clutch.
Appearance
The green shows as a subtle olive or khaki tint laid over the western hognose's usual light tan-to-sandy background; the dark saddle blotches, checkered belly and upturned snout stay unchanged underneath it. Expression varies a great deal from animal to animal: some carry only a faint tint, others a strong wash of green across the back and flanks. The colour is hard to capture consistently on camera, since sensors, screens and the angle of the light all shift how green a given snake looks in a photo compared with how it reads in hand. There is no single hatchling marker and no fixed adult endpoint to check against; judge a Green Phase animal in natural light, ideally in person or on video, rather than from a single photo.
Genetics
Green Phase is not a single-locus gene. It is a natural colour variation in wild western hognose populations, stabilised and intensified in captivity by pairing the greenest-looking animals together over successive generations, the same way other line-bred colour phases in the hobby are built. That is why the catalogue carries Green Phase and Pos Green Phase but no het row and no Super row: there is no single copy to be a carrier of and no double dose to name. Pos Green Phase marks an animal bred from green-line parents that shows the colour weakly or not at all, not a confirmed carrier in the recessive sense. Because the trait rides on a breeding line rather than a traceable mutation, pairing two normal-looking hognoses with no green history in their pedigree will not produce Green Phase offspring; the colour has to already be present in the line.