Can you breed brother and sister panther chameleon?

starter said:
From the biologist's point of view: Inbreeding and line breeding (in any animal or plant species as well as in humans) results in the formation of a large number of homozygote allels or, to put it in simpler terms, in genes and chromosomes (components of the DNA) which get the same genetic information from the father as they get from the mother. For more detailed scientific information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_(genetics) - and trust me, the principles are exactly the same for every species, including your particular breed of chameleon.

The results, in simple terms, are that all genetic defects which may be dormant in your adults, will "awaken" and actively show up in your babies. These will be mainly sicklish traits which will cause many of the babies to die naturally or have to be culled as they will be deformed or otherwise sick or debilitated. That is the downside. However, there are also some otherwise passive (scientifically called "recessive") genes which carry desired traits, such as a new colour or other desired physical feature. This feature will then be present visibly in some of the new babies. If you mate two babies who both visibly have such a desired feature, then ALL the resulting babies will have this desired feature, too, and it will remain visible and active in all the future generations, too. That's the upside. The downside is that it will take many generations to come to, while maintaining the one desired new feature, you will have stillborns and will have to cull some babies in every clutch and put effort into breeding out all the many undesired sicklish ones, which can take many years.

How can this be avoided? Only through collaboration of many breeders as it is, for example, common within purebred cat and dog breeder associations.

Let me explain this on the example of the White Swiss Shepherd Dog (which I used to breed in former times). This breed resulted from the old-style German Shepherd Dog, which is, as we all know, black and sable, without inbreeding and with no other dog breed having ever bred in. This is because the colour white has always been genetically "hidden" in many German Shepherds and occasionally a breedeer would get a white puppy from healthy, ethical breeding with genetically unrelated parents. The breeders used to cull them, as this colour was considered a fault. In the 1960ies, however, a group of dog lovers formed an association for the White Shepherd and made it their mission to commit to buy all white-born German Shepherd puppies in the US and Canada, to prevent them from being killed. They then mated the white dogs that have come from different breeders and therefore had no genetic defects (other than the colour White), and out of these matings they got only white puppies, all healthy and without any genetic defects.

So, if there are two chameleon breeders who, by good luck, get babies with a new desired trait, they should breed those those unrelated animals and they will get only babies with the desired trait, but whith no genetic defects. That is responsible breeding and a thousand times better than inbreeding or line-breeding. The latter should only be used if, after diligent and thorough search, no unrelated mating partner with the same, accidentally occurred, desired trait can be found. Today, in the age of the Internet, it should really not be so hard to find a suitable partner somewhere in the world, and the air fare for such a rare animal will definitely pay for itself with rewarding the breeder with healhy happy babies rather than sicklish ones a majority of which he would have to cull.
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Thank you! You explained it very well!!!
 
Chameleons, Panthers for example, are so beautiful, that inbreeding or line breeding is an unnecessary risk. So many colors out there. There isn't any reason to risk the health of a clutch to get a few that are a little brighter or have more of a certain color.
Selective breeding is the way to go. If someone is looking for a red one, for example, it may take a while to find that special breeder or chameleon but in the long run it will be worth it.
 
starter said:
From the biologist's point of view: Inbreeding and line breeding (in any animal or plant species as well as in humans) results in the formation of a large number of homozygote allels or, to put it in simpler terms, in genes and chromosomes (components of the DNA) which get the same genetic information from the father as they get from the mother. For more detailed scientific information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_(genetics) - and trust me, the principles are exactly the same for every species, including your particular breed of chameleon.

The results, in simple terms, are that all genetic defects which may be dormant in your adults, will "awaken" and actively show up in your babies. These will be mainly sicklish traits which will cause many of the babies to die naturally or have to be culled as they will be deformed or otherwise sick or debilitated. That is the downside. However, there are also some otherwise passive (scientifically called "recessive") genes which carry desired traits, such as a new colour or other desired physical feature. This feature will then be present visibly in some of the new babies. If you mate two babies who both visibly have such a desired feature, then ALL the resulting babies will have this desired feature, too, and it will remain visible and active in all the future generations, too. That's the upside. The downside is that it will take many generations to come to, while maintaining the one desired new feature, you will have stillborns and will have to cull some babies in every clutch and put effort into breeding out all the many undesired sicklish ones, which can take many years.

How can this be avoided? Only through collaboration of many breeders as it is, for example, common within purebred cat and dog breeder associations.

Let me explain this on the example of the White Swiss Shepherd Dog (which I used to breed in former times). This breed resulted from the old-style German Shepherd Dog, which is, as we all know, black and sable, without inbreeding and with no other dog breed having ever bred in. This is because the colour white has always been genetically "hidden" in many German Shepherds and occasionally a breedeer would get a white puppy from healthy, ethical breeding with genetically unrelated parents. The breeders used to cull them, as this colour was considered a fault. In the 1960ies, however, a group of dog lovers formed an association for the White Shepherd and made it their mission to commit to buy all white-born German Shepherd puppies in the US and Canada, to prevent them from being killed. They then mated the white dogs that have come from different breeders and therefore had no genetic defects (other than the colour White), and out of these matings they got only white puppies, all healthy and without any genetic defects.

So, if there are two chameleon breeders who, by good luck, get babies with a new desired trait, they should breed those those unrelated animals and they will get only babies with the desired trait, but whith no genetic defects. That is responsible breeding and a thousand times better than inbreeding or line-breeding. The latter should only be used if, after diligent and thorough search, no unrelated mating partner with the same, accidentally occurred, desired trait can be found. Today, in the age of the Internet, it should really not be so hard to find a suitable partner somewhere in the world, and the air fare for such a rare animal will definitely pay for itself with rewarding the breeder with healhy happy babies rather than sicklish ones a majority of which he would have to cull.
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Fascinating. You talk about White Shepards--is deafness an issue with them the way it is for Dalmations?
(a cousing with a bio degree explained to me once that the gene whose mutation is responsible for albinism is close to another gene connected to hereditary deafness and the two mutations are just too firmly established in the breed to ever be bred out. I don't know if people still think that's true.)


This speaks to other comments people have made about certain people engaging in this practice:

If you are an experienced breeder who is working with animals whose lineages are familiar to you, then inbreeding and line breeding can be done effectively and with less risk. If you have gotten to work with multiple generations of a breeding line, so you know the great grand parents, grand parents etc. of the siblings you want to breed, then you have some idea of what kinds of good and bad traits are lurking in the gene pool. If you have done a good job NOT breeding individuals with obvious bad traits, then you can feel more confident (but not 100%) that inbred offspring will be free from those traits.

But here I think there must be a big difference between reptile breeding and dog or cat breeding: human beings have lived with and bred these species for millenia. So, an experienced and responsible breeder of these animals is working with more than just their own personal knowledge--they can draw on generations of experience and understanding about canine and feline husbandry.

But chameleons are new to animal husbandry, so I imagine few people on this planet have enough experience with in terms of the number of animals they've seen and the number of generations they've bred. Most chameleons in captivity come from unknown origins--on the bright side, because most are wild caught, you at least know that they probably are sturdy enough to survive in the wild to whatever age you got them at (but maybe something is wrong with them that they were caught by people in the first place?) and you know that its unlikely that any two randomly purchased chams are related to each other. But their ancestry is a mystery: what if they were the only member of the clutch to hatch because of some disease? What if they have a time bomb cancer gene? What if? You never got to meet their parents, grandparents or siblings, so you just don't know.
 
salty dog said:
Brothers screwing sisters and having babies... very sick!! Who promotes that in any species!!
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You've owned dogs or cats, right? Then there was probably some degree of inbreeding back in their lineages. In fact, a lot of inbreeding happens without people being involved: so, stray cat colonies, where lots of animals congregate in a small area at a population density that is unknown in the wild, have some inbreeding going on.
 
Inbreeding is sad!! Read above posts. Us humans should not do it!!! Or promote it!!! We have no control over stray cat & dog colonies, stray cats or dogs are irrelevant....dogs do not inbreed, research wolf packs
 
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salty dog said:
Inbreeding is sad!! Read above posts. Us humans should not do it!!! Or promote it!!! We have no control over stray cat & dog colonies, stray cats or dogs are irrelevant....dogs do not inbreed, research wolf packs
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Oh my goodness, I'm stating that it happens in nature! See, cheetahs.

https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/inbreeding-of-purebred-dogs-determined-from-dna
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1994.08040961.x

I don't think any single commenter on this post has said: "mating siblings is good". In fact, several people have explained why it's not good--and it's more than just being "sick". But it also happens, naturally and as a tool of domestic animal husbandry, which might be why the person asked the question to begin with--they knew that some breeders of certain animals do this.

In that case, it might be useful to explain why SOME people do this (not why they SHOULD), and then also point out that those people (if they are responsible) are doing it under very specific conditions that the average chameleon owner doesn't meet (namely, we know nothing about the genetic history of our animals, and so know nothing of any potentially dangerous recessive genes that inbreeding would bring out).

Also, as Matt Vanilla Gorilla and others have pointed out, there's no REASON to inbreed chams--no rare traits that are valuable enough to promote by inbreeding at the expense of overall health.
 
Well, my intention is to discourage anybody from doing it. If somebody thinks (other animals do it) than they might find justice to do it themselves. With madagascar closed to export....for who knows how long, we should focus on keeping bloodlines seperate, at least thats what I think
 
salty dog said:
Well, my intention is to discourage anybody from doing it. If somebody thinks (other animals do it) than they might find justice to do it themselves. With madagascar closed to export....for who knows how long, we should focus on keeping bloodlines seperate, at least thats what I think
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Couldn't agree more. I wasn't trying to encourage it by any means.
 
Definitely people should be focusing on diversifying the gene pools of cb populations as much as possible!

salty dog said:
Well, my intention is to discourage anybody from doing it. If somebody thinks (other animals do it) than they might find justice to do it themselves. With madagascar closed to export....for who knows how long, we should focus on keeping bloodlines seperate, at least thats what I think
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I doubt there is any shortage of panther chameleon genetics already outside of Madagascar. I see no reason at this time to import any more fursifer pardalis. Unless a new local is discovered, or fresh genetics is desperately needed(mass illness), we should not encourage new captures.
 
nobody is getting anything out of madagascar, no quads, no parsons, no fursifer pardalis....nada, it is closed for export!! For some reason or another people keep trying to validate inbreeding..... not sure why... maybe because....some breeders do it to achieve color or pattern and tell people it's great to inbreed...
 
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Goose502 said:
Line breeding is pretty common in many reptile breeding programs. How do you think they’ve expressed so many different morphs of ball pythons or leopard geckos? In reality these “color morphs” are all genetic defects, or mutations expressed through line breeding. In reptiles this does not immediately impact overall health. However, it will eventually (generational timeline is not known) result in weakened animals. The most robust, healthy individuals are the result of strong, fresh genetics. It is not recommended in the chameleon world as there are no real mutations found in chameleons anyway. I personally would avoid it.
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Great reply Goose 502!! I completely agree! As with most living beings inbreeding, if not right away then eventually, will result in weakened individuals. And yes, I know and have actually done so myself breed Male Parent Goats, Llamas to their daughters without issue but never breed 2nd generations together!! Since diligent records aren't kept on reptiles (that I'm aware of anyway) I would personally NEVER CHANCE IT!!
 
Calummaty Jane said:
Oh my goodness, I'm stating that it happens in nature! See, cheetahs.

https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/inbreeding-of-purebred-dogs-determined-from-dna
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1994.08040961.x

I don't think any single commenter on this post has said: "mating siblings is good". In fact, several people have explained why it's not good--and it's more than just being "sick". But it also happens, naturally and as a tool of domestic animal husbandry, which might be why the person asked the question to begin with--they knew that some breeders of certain animals do this.

In that case, it might be useful to explain why SOME people do this (not why they SHOULD), and then also point out that those people (if they are responsible) are doing it under very specific conditions that the average chameleon owner doesn't meet (namely, we know nothing about the genetic history of our animals, and so know nothing of any potentially dangerous recessive genes that inbreeding would bring out).

Also, as Matt Vanilla Gorilla and others have pointed out, there's no REASON to inbreed chams--no rare traits that are valuable enough to promote by inbreeding at the expense of overall health.
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Great post. It can be hard to get a point across here at times without immediate knee-jerk emotional responses. It's like there is an invisible argument going on in this thread when i didn't actually see anyone advocating for inbreeding. Some people just get dialed into being offended and can't handle discussion.
 
Calummaty Jane said:
Fascinating. You talk about White Shepards--is deafness an issue with them the way it is for Dalmations?
(a cousing with a bio degree explained to me once that the gene whose mutation is responsible for albinism is close to another gene connected to hereditary deafness and the two mutations are just too firmly established in the breed to ever be bred out. I don't know if people still think that's true.)

Just a quick reply to this one, although it has nothing to do with chameleons - unless there are albinos amongst them, too - are there?
Firstly, albinism is not the same thing as a white colour. White-coloured animals (such as the White Swiss Shepherd Dog) have pigment, for example their paws, lips and eyes are black. Albinos lack pigment and their eyes are red. As far as I know, deafness has not been associated with albinism, but with a homozygote colour White. For example, many white-coloured moggie cats are deaf. They have two allels for the colour White which is normally recessive, and two White allels are associated with a high likeliness of deafness. However, one exception from this rule is found in the Russian Blue cat. Their Blue gene is recessive to White and White dominates over the blueish-grey colour of the purebred Russian Blue Cat. In Australia and South Africa, breeders have created a White Russian Cat by crossing in a white cat and then breeding all her features other than the colour White out over several generations. The result is that, in the now purebred White Russian Cat, the White gene "covers up" (dominates over) the Blue gene, so the cat appears white, but genetically it has one White gene and one Blue gene. And voila - Russian White Cats are NOT prone to developing deafness! This way genetic research can provide useful hints for almost every species as to which new features can be introduced without harm through line-breeding, and which ones should be avoided.
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Thanks for this! I was thinking that Dalmatians' coloration is a type of albinism, and a type of hereditary deafness is one problem Dalamtian breeders have to account for in their programs.

I assume the level of genetic manipulation (via selective breeding, not engineering) that you describe for cats to be beyond the realm of possibility for chameleons. As someone else mentioned earlier in this thread, not enough is known about the genetics of even the most common pet species of chameleons. But I do see that people breed translucent and piebald veileds, including animals with both traits.

I assume both mutations or morphs or however the reptile term is impact pigment production and I do wonder about the possible health complications of that. If chameleons need daily exposure to uv, do translucent veileds need less exposure? Or do they still need as much, but are they now at risk for skin cancer or other problems?
 
After they hatch in the wild, they're on their own...there is a chance that some months down the road siblings will mate, they have no idea they're siblings. What happens then?
 
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