Todd Stockwell
Julie; The breeder and seller of this particular specimen prefers to call it an “ornate northern” to signify that it has unusually white skin and uncommon amounts of yellow in the shell. “Light Phase” can be just about any specimen that isn’t “normal salt-and-pepper” or “platinum” gray. If the shell is particularly light colored and shows the concentric black rings especially well, then there tends to be more of an inclination to call it a “light phase.” Specimens with light tan or bluish shells have been tagged as “light phase” this past year on the internet posts. “Screamers” have been appearing this past year as specimens with especially white skin and large black “teardrop” or “racing stripes” on the white head. These terms can also be used for unusually colored specimens of the other subspecies such as macrospilota and littoralis that are commonly darker colored – and then the confusion and ambiguity realy sets in! Sellers (wholesellers moving lots of dbts as opposed to actual breeders) have been tending to use “ornate,” “light phase,” and “screamer” with increasing regularity to draw attention to their product. A buyer needs to get a clear photo of the specimen and decide for themselves as these are all subjective terms at this point. We have had an ongoing discussion on this list about this topic because only the Florida subspecies macrospilota is the “true” ornate by conventional identfication. Calling other colorful individual specimens of the other subspecies “ornates” leads to confusion as to the origins of the animal. Anyone else want to jump in on this? Todd Julie wrote: