I don't consider them hypo.... I consider them to be Pastel. It does the same thing to these garters as it does to the ball pythons... lightens up the background color and intensifies the contrast. I simply call them hypo because that's what they were named and I don't want to confuse people into thinking I have a new/different morph. Here at home, I refer to them as the pastel's. Maybe I will just say screw it and start calling them pastels. When you have a clutch of animals born and half look like that, and half are clearly normal, you are dealing with some type of morph regardless of what it's called. You breed one to a normal animal and you get half that come out looking like that. There is really no gray area... they either are one, or they're not... just like the pastel ball python... and that's really all of the criteria I need to know that it's a morph of some type. I don't consider these to be just a natural variation, just as I don't consider granites or albinos to be natural variations. Sure they all originate from the wild, but natural variation describes the different color phases and slight variations that you see within a clutch of normal animals... not a gene that clearly alters physical appearance to a great extent and that can be accurately reproduced.