Speaking as someone that does this stuff for a living I, sadly, find that too many in the hobby thing the stuff they learned in freshman biology is the sum total of all there is to know about genetics. That said, admitting your limited understanding is the first step to learning more. You absolutely CAN learn more about it though, so do not write yourself off as not being “wired” to learn it. I will not say it is easy, but it is possible. And once you learn it then you can suffer from an all new kind of “this makes my brain hurt” 
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Chondros do not have this, all they have is the very dramatic ontogenetic colour change from a red or yellow baby to the bright green adult.
However, many of the Candoia genus do fire up and down, sometimes dramatically. I posted an example of this over here: