My new chams, Trioceros quadricornis gracilior

[Chameleons Canada]

In my opinion their coloration is too variable to use it as a sure method to distinguish the subspecies. The male from Chris seems to have all the morphological details which are typical for the subspecies gracilior, but as Kent said it could be as well only regional populations.
I still doubt that there are real graciliors in the hobby, especially since I get to know from a few guys that they sell their quad.quads as graciliors to make more money

LOL. Good to know Benny, good to know

 

[Chris Anderson]

The problem is that the biogeography of the chameleons from Cameroon has been relatively poorly examined, at least when you compare to species from South Africa and Tanzania, for example. I don't think knowing the locality is necessarily a good means to know which subspecies you are looking at. As another example, T. h. hoehnelii is supposedly from Kenya while T. h. altaeelgonis is supposedly from Uganda. With that said, you simply can not group all specimens from Uganda as T. h. altaeelgonis. You need to look at the morphology.

Chris

 

[Kent67]

Kent - According to the description of T. q. gracilior (Böhme & Klaver, 1981), the horns of T. q. gracilior are relatively longer and narrower then in T. q. quadricornis and the sailfin is shorter and tappers into the tail more smoothly.

My understanding was that those traits were not necessarily reliable and more anecdotal, whereas true identification would be based on lung and hemipenal morphology, as most of Klaver and Böhme's taxonomic work was based on.

 

[laurie]

Your chameleons are lovely. I have my first pair of quadricornis, quadricornis and find them to be captivating. They are beautiful, graceful, and their color patterns are fantisic.

 

[Jonas]

Of course a line on a map wont matter to animals.
I have been thinking about how it seems to be important to divide animals into different species/subspecies lately, more so when I read Hendersons article on Corallus caninus being divided into C. caninus and C. batesii.

So, should I take it that we dont know if there is a hybrid zone?

 

[Kent67]

The problem is that the biogeography of the chameleons from Cameroon has been relatively poorly examined, at least when you compare to species from South Africa and Tanzania, for example. I don't think knowing the locality is necessarily a good means to know which subspecies you are looking at.

Klaver described northern and southern lung typs for the species (Klaver, 1980). The northern type, T.q.gracilior, was from Mt. Lefo, Mt. Oku, Bamboutos Mountains, Nigeria, etc. The nominate subspecies was presumably described from a specimen from Mt. Kupe, where its collector first found T. pfefferi. At any rate, Klaver described the southern (nominate ssp.) lung type from specimens collected on Manenguba and to the southwest of there. While knowing the locality may not necessarily id the correct ssp., it would definitely help.

 

[Chris Anderson]

My understanding was that those traits were not necessarily reliable and more anecdotal, whereas true identification would be based on lung and hemipenal morphology, as most of Klaver and Böhme's taxonomic work was based on.

Well, according to the description, diagnosis can be made by horn number (when gracilior males have 6 horns), horn size/shape, tail and back fin size/shape and lung morphology. I don't have my copy of their hemipenal morphology paper in the lab to check that but they considered them diagnosing characters in the description.

Chris

 

[drewtt]

What a beautiful male quad! I'm jealous.

Drew

 

[Chris Anderson]

Klaver described northern and southern lung typs for the species (Klaver, 1980). The northern type, T.q.gracilior, was from Mt. Lefo, Mt. Oku, Bamboutos Mountains, Nigeria, etc. The nominate subspecies was presumably described from a specimen from Mt. Kupe, where its collector first found T. pfefferi. At any rate, Klaver described the southern (nominate ssp.) lung type from specimens collected on Manenguba and to the southwest of there. While knowing the locality may not necessarily id the correct ssp., it would definitely help.

I just pulled up my copy of this paper (its Klaver, 1981) and you are correct. He did not name the Northern form as T. q. gracilior in this paper as it wasn't until that year the subspecies was described but I think its safe to assume that is what he was referring to. At any rate, locality would naturally help add weight to an ID but there needs to be more work done on the distributions to determine if there are any hybrid zones or just how geographically isolated they are from one another.

Chris

 

[Kent67]

I just pulled up my copy of this paper (its Klaver, 1981)

D'oh, pardon me. I knew it was prior to the Böhme & Klaver article but thought it was the year before. As for more work needing to be done, I agree. I was actually just looking at the US State Department's website for travel advice and warnings to Cameroon and got the impression it's not any worse than a lot of countries in Africa that westerners travel to. There's obviously a well-known industry of scammers there, but the travel dangers don't seem any worse than say, Uganda, Kenya, or even Madagascar from my cursory scan. Any idea why there's not more going on there than your examples in Tanz and S.A.? I would think an experienced African researcher (Tilbury?) could safely conduct a little expedition?

 

[dirrtybirdy]

these are my new favorite chameleons! I really want one..Nice chams!

 

[bifidus]

Ken, you can not compare Madagascar, Cameroon and Kenya.
Madagascar is safe. They will try steel your luggage, wallet and for example if you will travel with taxi 5 km and you did not made agreement about price in advance they can ask for $200 and nothing will help you (even policeman in this case will say that driver is correct), but it is relatively nice and safe country and your life is not in danger.

In Cameroon there will run to you 5 men with machete and ask from you $200 because you are going through their land (which was not their like was found later). You can a bit discuss and make some discount and pay for example $150.
Without local guide you will consistently run in such problems, if you go on street you need run away to avoid robbery. Even local friend will not always be able save you.

In Kenya (Mombasa) they drive with truck to you so you need save you and run in house doors. Than they will cut machete in your hand and after than will take eveything what you have including clothing - you will stay without documents and money with wounded hand. Because it is Saturday and you fly out next day and you will not have documents, you are terribly worry.
You go with luggage from hotel without airline ticket and passport to airport asking what to do. They asked your name, make new airticket for you and when you ask about passport you receive reply: Do tyou think that you will be the only person without passport in airplane?"
When you arrive in EU without documents it is a bit problem but your consul solve it quickly, everybody understand that from Kenya you sometimes simple return without it... Just your hand makes health problems months after arrival. But most parts of Kenya are safe, you just need avoid others.

Everything as described above happened to me or to my friends.
In principe all countries are great for travel. Nobody will throw stones on you like in some arab countries. Simple you need know what to do, what you can to do and what you can not (risk) there.

Try Chad, Liberia or Kongo if you want some adrenaline.

 

[LovitaVelvet]

That was an enlightening piece of travel insight Bifidus.

Thanks

 

[Kent67]

Bifidus, those are some really interesting travel stories. I haven't heard of any chameleon-interested folks traveling to Cameroon in quite some time, as compared to East African countries. I did not expect it to be comparable to Madagascar in terms of traveler's safety but more like Kenya or Uganda, which I don't consider to be all that safe right now. As such, scientific exploration and taxonomic work have continued being done in East Africa, usually by large(ish) groups of people. Would the same just not be possible in Cameroon?

 

[eisentrauti]

I would join a expedition en plus je parle un brin de francais

 

[Eszzie]

Thanks for all the positive responds, I was quite surprised seeing such a huge discussion going on in my topic after a day. First it was about the difference bewteen gracilior and quadricornis, now we are at talking about traveling experiences. Haha, talking about off-topic. Still interesting discussion about the sub-specie. Great to learn things from, my boyfriend is also very much into taxonomy and keeping up with new species and stuff so I learn a lot

 

[Smokey]

wow really nice looking chams