Breeding. Can u mix diff panthers
- Thread starter nino
- Start date
el chamino
Member
Three things you don't talk about here...
Religion, Politics and... Panther crossing
Some people do cross, but it can be a real touchy subject.
Religion, Politics and... Panther crossing
Some people do cross, but it can be a real touchy subject.
nino
Member
Three things you don't talk about here...
Religion, Politics and... Panther crossing
Some people do cross, but it can be a real touchy subject.
Since I don't have a dog (or panther) in this fight I will break the controversy down for you. There are 2 main points of view.
1) Preserving the genetics of the various panther locales is desirable as opposed to mixing the locales and turning out random mutts.
2) Some breeders are turning out designer colors by making carefully recorded crosses and selling them as cross locales i.e. Tour of Madagascars and Rainbows
Most agree that any cross locales should be represented as what they are down to the percentage of locale and that random breeding of crosses will be bad for the species in captivity making it impossible to preserve the locales.
1) Preserving the genetics of the various panther locales is desirable as opposed to mixing the locales and turning out random mutts.
2) Some breeders are turning out designer colors by making carefully recorded crosses and selling them as cross locales i.e. Tour of Madagascars and Rainbows
Most agree that any cross locales should be represented as what they are down to the percentage of locale and that random breeding of crosses will be bad for the species in captivity making it impossible to preserve the locales.
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
I like cross locales, but I also understand why you want some purity in the lines, I think as long as you have the pure ones I think that is good, so you can offer both pure lines, and cross locales. Definitely do careful tracking of the locales in each animal. But otherwise I see nothing wrong with crossing as long as you are careful. Honestly the only way I know for sure to know you have a specific locale you are looking for is to do DNA testing, colors can be awful deceiving. And I think there are only like 15 panther locales? Someone correct me if I am wrong?
*disappears again*
*disappears again*
Scottsquatch
Chameleon Enthusiast
I am intrigued by some of the colors I have seen in crosses but I just feel like too many people would be irresponsible and not disclose what they were selling. That happened a bit when I was deep into the corn snake game. Hopefully cham people are more honest.
JoeDigiorgio
Avid Member
The problem with crossing of locales in panthers...and really any animal locales, isn't what you're doing as a breeder. It's what is done with the animals that are produced AFTER they're sold.
There isn't anything ethically wrong with producing these animals and putting them in loving homes. What's wrong is the inevitable use of these animals in later breedings, usually by people who either don't really know what they're doing, or are intentionally using these designer animals to increase the value of their 'pure stock'.
Imagine the temptation of passing off some unique gorgeous animal as a pure ambanja or pure ambilobe. It's inevitable whether on purpose or not. And it's a trend that's already ruined entire captive populations of plenty of animals no longer avaiable from the wild.
There isn't anything ethically wrong with producing these animals and putting them in loving homes. What's wrong is the inevitable use of these animals in later breedings, usually by people who either don't really know what they're doing, or are intentionally using these designer animals to increase the value of their 'pure stock'.
Imagine the temptation of passing off some unique gorgeous animal as a pure ambanja or pure ambilobe. It's inevitable whether on purpose or not. And it's a trend that's already ruined entire captive populations of plenty of animals no longer avaiable from the wild.
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
I honestly would never buy a cross-locale unless it's got a percentage and lineage that can be traced. That's doing it right. The thing with locales in the wild you may be told this species is this locale, because of where it is picked up, unless you get it's DNA tested (from what I understand about DNA testing with locales) there is no 100% way to know this animal is a pureline. Sorry but chams can cross into other territories, it may be rare, but totally possible. I would not be surprised if over half the animals we think are one locale are either a completely different one or a mix.
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
I honestly don't care much either. If we aren't putting them out in the wild to repopulate then why does it really matter? It's kind of like purebred dogs? If people are using it for specific scientific breeding or whatever, then they won't question doing DNA testing. but that's just me. I personally like being surprised by my chams colors.
Damn this topic is one of the ones I like so much I can't avoid answering when I should be focusing on other things
Damn this topic is one of the ones I like so much I can't avoid answering when I should be focusing on other things
Scottsquatch
Chameleon Enthusiast
I think I am inclined to agree. It is inevitable that it WILL happen. it would definitely be a shame if it gets to the point where we can no longer get pure strains of panthers imported and all we have left here are "mutts." Not that I wouldn't keep them anyway.
JoeDigiorgio
Avid Member
That really just comes down to reputable importers. Believe it or not locales of panthers and most other animals rarely hybridize. Not because they won't but because by nature, locales develop because of some boundary dividing them to begin with.
I know this better in clownfish and flasher wrasses because I don't know the geography of Madagascar like I do Indonesian seas but without some sort of natural or man caused mixing, crossings only happen in uncommon areas where both locales border each other.
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
Well if we are talking about Panther chameleons, all panthers from what I know are from Madagascar, now though it may be a huge forest in relation to a single chameleon it is not huge to a large amount of chameleons. There will be cross overs and I would not be surprised if there are more mixes than you are aware. They are only found in northern and the eastern biomes of madagascar, with a select few locales found on a smaller two islands off the coast of the main island of madagascar, it's easy for a tree limb or even a tree itself to fall into a river or if it was overhanging a cliff into the ocean, and they could honestly survive long enough to hit a new territory. It's happened with animals all the time, with animals it shouldn't have happened with. The ocean is a bit different as far as boundaries since the fish you mention above are specifically reef fish and most of the ocean is open and they would never leave it. Most of Madagascar is forest, especially in the biomes I mentioned.
JoeDigiorgio
Avid Member
The party that disagrees with locale crossing doesn't agree that it's the same as dog's for a few reasons. Instead of dogs think of wolves. What if all we had were mutts of unknown percentage of most or all the continents wolf species? Its happened in a few places in North America that we actually did have to repopulate the wild. It happened with the Florida panther, but we had so few pure ones left they had to use Midwestern mountain lions, a visibly different cat, to repopulate. It's a sad state when we are completely responsible for preserving a species and we fail. Isn't that the purpose of captive breeding? Species preservation?
I'm sternly on one side of the locale conversation but it's a good conversation to continue having. People need to know what they're doing.
Andee
Chameleon Enthusiast
There are 11 species in the Fucifer paradalis chameleon, and none interbreed but from what I understand, locales are not species. Because species cannot interbreed but "locales" which we consider the color morphs can, so the color morphs aren't what are important but the species are. Because all the color morphs will happen again with the right separating out. And honestly we have caused most of the "locales" to happen with messing with them. Wild caught what we assume are the "locales" we are looking at, are usually nothing like the ones in captivity in many ways. Except Nosy Be can often be same and that's because they are so isolated on the Nosy Be island. So in my opinion, DNA testing is more important because the species differences are more important that the locales are.
Scottsquatch
Chameleon Enthusiast
Its funny that they had to use panthers from the Midwest as the DNR in Minnesota denied they were here until just recently. I saw one in the Superior National Forest back in 93 or 94 and was told I didn't know what I was talking about. With the popularity of game/trail cams it became very evident that they are in fact here and the DNR had to change their position. Too bad they had to use these Midwestern cats as they are much larger than the Florida locale.
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JoeDigiorgio
Avid Member
If spontaneous events like those happened as often as it's argued they are, speciation and locale development wouldn't be a thing to begin with. Again locales aren't formed where there are no major boundaries. By definition that's how they develop. One can't picture a forest where at some arbitrary point, the lizards change from blue to red. That's not how it works. Not for any species.
My arguments in favor of preserving locales aren't chameleon specific. It's important not to read my comments in that light. Whether it's a lizard or a fish or a bird, locale preservation is more important than taxonomic species preservation. Otherwise it isn't truly preservation.
