My new chams, Trioceros quadricornis gracilior

[Eszzie]

We got 1.2 Trioceros quadricornis [edit] quadricornis for Hamm (Germany) last week.

Stressed from moving to his new cage:

A lot beter here:

One of the females:

 

[eisentrauti]

Wow, great animals ! Do you keep them together as a group ? From whom did you get him ?

Benny

 

[Peter Kraemer]

Hi Esther,
beautiful chameleons!!!!

How do you keep them in the winter (cage, cage-size)?

Greetings, Peter

 

[Vampire.queen]

They look so awesome!
Good luck with their breeding!

 

[Eszzie]

Thnx I can't remember the guy's name but he's well known by my boyfriend, the guy we bought them from was from Germany. As my boyfriend usually gets his dwarfs from him he knows the animals are in good shape. They are WC but these people threat the animals them very well.

I have the male seperated from the 2 females. The 2 females are together in a cage 1m x 1m x 2m and the male seperated in a cage same size. They are still outside when the weather is right but they will go into our cellar later on. We bought the new Zoomed ReptiBreeze screen cages.

 

[eisentrauti]

Nice enclosure size !!!

 

[Eszzie]

Thanks, we have 4 of these enclosures outside. 1 with 2 quadri females, 1 with quadri male, 1 with an 8 year old veiled male and 1 with a 2 year old veiled male.
Furthermore we have flexariums with Trioceros montium, Bradipodion Thamnobates and more. Most of them are inside the cellar right now but 1st week of October everything goes inside again.

 

[Chris Anderson]

Beautiful animals but I do not think they are Trioceros quadricornis gracilior. Based on the shape and size of the horns and the sail fin on the base of the tail, and their coloration, they appear to be Trioceros quadricornis quadricornis.

Chris

 

[jannb]

Very beautiful animals!!!!!

 

[Eszzie]

We don't know for sure neither, the animals are not yet fully adults and the horns of the male are damaged so we can't see clearly if it has 4 or 6 horns. I will have to find out later, im still doing research on the specie and I know very little about the sub-specie gracilior myself. I'll keep you updated about the progress and findings.

 

[eisentrauti]

I thought the same as Chris, but I wasn't sure at all. The number of horns didn't really work to distinguish the subspecies well. The coloration of the claws is also no sure option to distinguish them

 

[Eszzie]

I checked out your quadri's Chris and i must reconsider if this is gracilior. My boyfriend concluded it was gracilior, not the seller. But after seeing your pictures I think it's indeed Trioceros quadricornis quadricornis.

 

[eisentrauti]

From my knowledge, the best opinions to distinguish them are the coloration of the head (gracilior seem to have a big yellow part behind the eye) and that the fins of the gracilior are smaller.

 

[joshdhensley]

I agree with you two. I don't think they are T.Q.Gracilior either (At least the male). Very nice, though. Good luck on the breeding.

 

[Eszzie]

I talked to my boyfriend and he said the seller did say he thought it was gracilior, after checking the fins on the tail i notice from the gracilior the fins are a lot smaller, so think it not gracilior then.

Thanks anyways, now i know a bit more about them again

 

[Sang]

Beautiful animals but I do not think they are Trioceros quadricornis gracilior. Based on the shape and size of the horns and the sail fin on the base of the tail, and their coloration, they appear to be Trioceros quadricornis quadricornis.

Chris

i thought only gracilor had the peach coloration, while quad quad had alot more silvers/ greys mixed into the body..

then again, what do i know?

 

[Kent67]

Unless you know what population they were collected from, I think the only way to really know the difference is based on lung and hemipenal morphology. Personally, I'm starting to believe the "red-headed" or "orange-clawed" quads are just a different locale of the nominate subspecies. Necas' book has a photo of a T. q. gracilior male (pg 203) and its coloration and growth pattern of the 2nd set of horns are quite different from anything I've ever seen imported to the US. So far I haven't seen any that looked like that in European collections either.

 

[Chris Anderson]

Sang - Unfortunately using coloration to differentiate is rarely reliable. I've seen photos of both species with silver/grey coloration. You really need to look at the morphology. Unfortunately females are not nearly as easy.

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.

T. q. gracilior:

T. q. quadricornis:

Eszzie - Glad we were able to help you learn more about them! They are an interesting species.

Chris

 

[eisentrauti]

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

 

[Jonas]

I know very little about this species, are they geographically separated? is there a hybrid zone?