Interbreeding question in stump tailed chams.

[johnnyev]

Hi all.
New to this forum & relatively new to pygmy chameleons, although have a fair bit of experience with panthers & yemens.

Anyway my question is in the title really. Can species from the groups Rhampholeon & Rieppleon interbreed in captivity and naturally in the wild? Especially as a few species range overlap in wild populations.
As i said fairly new to pygmys & one of the things i find really difficult/frustrating is correct species id. I know from the large amount of research i have done, that this appears quite common.
In the short time i have been keeping pygmys, i already have two, quite possibly three different species. All were sold to me as brevicaudatus though.
Just wondered if its possible for them to interbreed as this would make species id even more uncertain.

Any info/thoughts much appreciated.
Cheers.

 

[Carlton]

Can we see pics of the animals you are wondering about? What sort of differences do you mean? Just coloration? Anatomical such as appendages, spines, flaps, rostrals, etc? You could be seeing locale or individual variation rather than species-level individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if our understanding of sub-species taxonomy in stump tails is a lot more limited than for something like panthers. Off the top of my head I would think stump tails evolve into locale morphs a lot more easily as it would seem that they are less mobile than arboreal species. But maybe not and I'm certainly no expert. Can't recall hearing anything about captive interbreeding (deliberate or accidental).

Sounds like a question for Chris Anderson.

 

[CarlC]

Each species occupies a certain niche in the environment it come's from. Species do overlap and run into each other but the majority of time they are in different places or look different from each other. It is no different with all genus's. An example in Trioceros would be werneri and tempeli. In the Udzungwa Mountains both could be found in the same area. The separation of species is tempeli occupies the lower shrubs and bush's while werneri is found in tree's and the upper environment.

Like Carlton said do you have any pictures of the animals you think are different species?

Chris can probably give a much better answer.

Carl

 

[johnnyev]

Thanks Carlton, Carl.

The locale morphs comment sounds feasible Carlton. I wouldn't be surprised if there were species with different features/colours/markings (or even missing features, like brevi with no beard) dependent on the areas they inhabit. Hoping Chris or someone else with the knowledge can verify if species can in fact cross breed or not??

At present i have 0.0.2 Rhampholeon temporalis & 0.0.2 Rieppleon brevicaudatus
& have recently put a deposit on 0.0.2 Rhampholeon kerstenii, if they really are.

They seem like the real deal, colours/markings like kerstenii & no beard scales under the chin, different head shape to brevi, but body shape more like brevicaudatus than kerstenii?? Collecting them at the weekend, so will post some pics when i have them settled in.