do all cham babies end up looking like parents?

[rango87]

just wondered do all the chams babies look like the parents??
will they all look different?

 

[Carlton]

just wondered do all the chams babies look like the parents??
will they all look different?

How much they will look like their parents depends a lot on how much diversity exists in the coloration of their ancestors. In other words, if a breeder has selected for a particular color trait for a longer time (and eliminated individual chams that didn't show it) the babies from that line are somewhat more likely to look just like their parents. But there's also a downside to this sort of very selective breeding...unintended defects that might be lurking unseen along with the desired color...could be things like smaller size, shorter lifespan, tendency for some particular health problem, fewer successful egg hatches, smaller clutch sizes, etc.

A hereditary line of chams that still has some variation will probably produce more variety in how the babies look, and there is always a chance that an uncommon color trait surfaces from several generations back. No chams are all that distant from their wild ancestors at this point and the wild populations show a lot of individual variation that could be caused by simple mutation, effects of different diet, incubation conditions in different regions, etc.

I don't think I'd want to produce a line of chams that all looked pretty identical. Waiting to see what you end up with is like Christmas and they are all pretty IMHO!