Entry 9Colour modifier
Hypo
Lightens the base by reducing dark pigment.
H
What it looks like
Hypo is the name breeders use for a gecko with less dark pigment than usual, so its colours look lighter and cleaner. Foundation Genetics describes Hypo lightening the base colour with age, turning white pattern paper white and helping orange pattern fade towards white.
Foundation Genetics describes Hypo on dark geckos giving grey to lavender tones, on reds neon red to pink, and on yellows pale yellow to cream, where even spots that usually stay dark, like under the tail base and the kneecaps, lose colour. Hypo geckos still fire up and down, though some change less than others. The label covers more than one project, so two geckos sold as Hypo may not share the same gene.
The series
Same animal, same seed. Only this gene changes. Open any one in the builder.
Named combinations
Morphs that need this gene and at least one other.
Blondeeasy to breed
A light yellow gecko with yellow rather than white along the back, clean and without dark blending. Breeders use the name loosely, so there is no single recipe.
NeedsYellow BaseHypo
Bubblegum Pinktakes some work
A bubblegum pink pattern colour: Tangerine shifts white pattern toward pink, and Hypo lightens it further. AC Reptiles also uses Bubblegum for its own Tangerine line, and the pink can appear without all three.
NeedsHypoTangerineWhite Pattern
C2difficult
A clean, cream-on-cream look with very little dark pigment, reduced even under the tail base and around the kneecaps. The C2 name belongs to AC Reptiles' line from a cream-on-cream founder; Yellow Base with Hypo gives a similar pale cream, but only that ancestry makes a C2.
NeedsYellow BaseHypo
Creamsicletakes some work
Cream to orange: the warm tones of Yellow Base lightened by Hypo, shifted toward peach when Tangerine is added. Foundation Genetics calls it long sought after and hard to produce consistently, and there is more than one route to it.
NeedsYellow BaseHypo
Lavendertakes some work
Lavender, purple or blue-shifted colour in place of the usual dark base, from Hypo lightening Black Base. The pastel tones often deepen with age. Other routes can look lavender too, so there is no universal recipe.
NeedsBlack BaseHypo
Pinktakes some work
Neon red to candyfloss pink, from Hypo lightening Red Base; how pink depends on how strong the red is. Pink can also come from Tangerine-tinted pattern, so there is no universal recipe.
NeedsRed BaseHypo
Silver / Grey Phantomdifficult
Silver to grey, metallic-looking tones, from Hypo lightening a Phantom's dark blending. Foundation Genetics notes many yellow-base Phantoms also fade to silver as adults.
NeedsPhantomHypo
With other genes
Black Basemake Lavender
Hypo on Black Base lightens the dark base to lavender, purple or blue-shifted tones.
Yellow Baselighten to cream
Hypo on Yellow Base lightens toward a clean white cream, the look the C2 line is known for.
Red Basemake Pink
Hypo on Red Base lightens the red to neon red through candyfloss pink.
White Patternwhiten it
Hypo turns white pattern toward a clean paper white.
Notes
How it is inheritedHypo doesn't have one agreed pattern of inheritance, because different lines may be different things. Foundation Genetics describes it as dominant but not always fully showing, and says the forms of Hypo can act incompletely dominant. Either way, how strongly Hypo shows varies from gecko to gecko. Foundation Genetics says that before calling a line Hypo, you need to breed it out and watch the babies to prove which form it carries. The Bugg Plug's Fire project is separate from Hypo.
Where breeders differBreeders even differ on when to use the word. AC Reptiles, for one, avoids calling its clean-coloured C2 geckos Hypo, though others do.
Where it came fromNo single founder is on record for this name. It is shared hobby vocabulary. Foundation Genetics traces lighter, low-pigment geckos back to the early hobby, including cream-on-cream animals in the early 2000s, and says Tom Favazza began describing Hypo's inheritance and using the name around 2015.
In Gecktopia
The game uses Hypo as one general lightening gene, with one and two copies, kept separate from Fire. Real Hypo may be several different projects; the game does not claim they are one.
- Passed on in the game as incomplete dominant.
Sources
Anthony and Jessica Vasquez, Tom Favazza and breeder collaborators, date not established
Adding Genetic Hypo and Blizzard
Brian Burnett / The Bugg Plug, January to February 2024
Anthony Caponetto / AC Reptiles, date not established
Foundation Genetics contributors, date not established
Entry 9 of 33. Every gecko on this page was drawn from its own genes just now, by the renderer that draws them in the game.