There is no anwser to this problem at this point. What I do is to label the animals when they are newly hatched babies. Say for instance, if I breed a Hypo Lavender to a Lavender het for Hypo, any of the standout lighter colored babies are labeled as "Hypo Lavenders". Now anyone who has hatched out hypos knows that in a clutch of babies, the Hypos will stand out like sore thumbs. No doubt at all about which is which in that clutch.
But as they mature (and this is true in ANY line that Hypomelanism will be bred into) it is very common for some hypos to turn darker, and some non-hypos to get lighter. That is why I label them when they are newly hatched babies. Because later on, you just may not be able to tell the difference.
So yes, I have seen Hypo Lavenders definitely turn darker and some regular Lavenders definitely turn lighter. Matter of fact, I have several cases of my adults where some of the normal Lavenders are much brighter than some of the Hypo Lavenders. In many instances, those lighter colored "normal" Lavenders came from blood lines with no trace of Hypomelanism in their ancestry at all. This is just par for the course and I really don't even lose much sleep over it any longer.
As far as my looking at a photo of someone elses animal and being asked to make a determination about what it is, sorry, but no. I am not going to go out on a limb and do that. I have animals of my own hatching out every year with a fairly well documented genetic history that I don't have a clue about what they really are. So I certainly am not going to bring someone elses integrity into question by taking a shot in the dark guess at what something is or is not.
One aside about the Hypo Lavenders, though: For the first couple of years I produced them, I was becoming convinced that there must be something sex linked in that combination, since I was only getting male Hypo Lavenders. Then finally I got one or two females, then more of them as a couple more years of breeding them got under my belt. But in nearly all cases, the males were much lighter than any of the females. Finally this past year (2003), I have gotten some females that appear that they will rival any of the best males I have ever produced. Of course, they are all keepers, but at least at this point I know that it is possible to produce some stunner female Hypo Lavenders. What they will turn out looking like as full adults is another issue that I will address in a couple of years, I guess. Plus I must confess that I am really not looking forward to seeing the result when I breed these killer females with my killer males. Something just tells me that I won't get what logic would predict.
Of course, there is always the spectre of multiple hypo genes being in the Lavender line, which could certainly throw more wrinkles into the mess. But at this point the only defense I have against a situation that will drive me insane is to just shrug my shoulders and accept it as it is and go on.
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