NEW C. gracilis x calyptratus hybrid

[DavidBuchan]

It's very interesting and fun There is no moral issue here for me, it was accidental anyway. I doubt that it will make them much more valuable, but if it does what's the problem? Do you guys have a moral issue with people keeping mules or Labradoodles?
Pedigree breeding involves keeping close enough track to prevent these hybrids being used by commercial breeders, so it won't impact on the site sponsors much. This is going to produce a lot more genetic diversity in these offspring though so it would be interesting to know if the new breed are sterile or not.........
I find the issue of genetic purity interesting, and personally am against any type of eugenics (human or animal) for keeping bloodlines racially 'pure'. Let's be honest, the reason to keep them as pure as possible is also to make more money
For me the only issue is the health of the animals..........we all know that pedigree dog breeding has led to severe health issues. Who knows what potential pedigree Chameleon problems will emerge in the future?
They all look as cute as any baby Cham, so good luck with them

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

It's very interesting and fun There is no moral issue here for me, it was accidental anyway. I doubt that it will make them much more valuable, but if it does what's the problem? Do you guys have a moral issue with people keeping mules or Labradoodles?
Pedigree breeding involves keeping close enough track to prevent these hybrids being used by commercial breeders, so it won't impact on the site sponsors much. This is going to produce a lot more genetic diversity in these offspring though so it would be interesting to know if the new breed are sterile or not.........
I find the issue of genetic purity interesting, and personally am against any type of eugenics (human or animal) for keeping bloodlines racially 'pure'. Let's be honest, the reason to keep them as pure as possible is also to make more money
For me the only issue is the health of the animals..........we all know that pedigree dog breeding has led to severe health issues. Who knows what potential pedigree Chameleon problems will emerge in the future?
They all look as cute as any baby Cham, so good luck with them

If it makes them more valuable, the problem is that people will prioritize making money above establishing a healthy captive population (think about translucent calyptratus etc.). Suppose everyone would start mixing up calyptratus and gracilis (if they would produce fertile offspring) and genetic diversity would indeed increase, but we'd lose both "true" species in captivity... I don't think that's a positive thing.

Pedigree dog breeding has indeed led to severe health issues, but only because ''we'' first created different races through selective breeding.

 

[okiroo]

I don´t think anyone of us has the right to judge which animals have a right to live or not.
I just wanted to say that i personally would have seen more sense in having some baby veileds or gracefuls instead of those hybrids which will in best case be infertile.
I just hope nobody is trying to do that on purpose because of this thread.

well mabey with all the reckless breeding and ect some infertals will be good for people. when they get these as pets they cant breed them; than breeding can be put to people who are good at it and have experience. this cross might be a gr8 starter cham

 

[Chris Anderson]

It's very interesting and fun There is no moral issue here for me, it was accidental anyway. I doubt that it will make them much more valuable, but if it does what's the problem? Do you guys have a moral issue with people keeping mules or Labradoodles?
Pedigree breeding involves keeping close enough track to prevent these hybrids being used by commercial breeders, so it won't impact on the site sponsors much. This is going to produce a lot more genetic diversity in these offspring though so it would be interesting to know if the new breed are sterile or not.........
I find the issue of genetic purity interesting, and personally am against any type of eugenics (human or animal) for keeping bloodlines racially 'pure'. Let's be honest, the reason to keep them as pure as possible is also to make more money
For me the only issue is the health of the animals..........we all know that pedigree dog breeding has led to severe health issues. Who knows what potential pedigree Chameleon problems will emerge in the future?
They all look as cute as any baby Cham, so good luck with them

Your comparisons to dogs lack any validity as they are not comparable cases.

First, Labradoodles are hybrids between two breeds of the same subspecies, Canis lupus familiaris. We are not talking here about hybridizing two chameleon breeds of the same subspecies or even species, we are talking about hybridizing two completely different chameleon species.

Secondly, the issues of pedigree dogs having severe health issues is a case of races that were developed as a result of artificial selection. In the case of chameleon species and even locales of a given chameleon species, they have evolved through natural selection. Natural selection does not artificially propagate or select for weak genes while artificial selection frequently does. In fact, weak traits are selected against in species that have undergone natural selection.

The problem with the argument that hybridizing two chameleon species in order to increase the genetic diversity of the offspring so as to prevent potential inbreeding depression is that this argument lacks the presence of an inbreeding depression problem in the first place. Inbreeding depression is a common problem in breeds with a long history of artificial selection resulting in increased homozygosity or in the frequency of deleterious recessive alleles, and in some taxa that have undergone a genetic bottleneck that by chance has resulted in the same aforementioned genetic results. Neither of the two species in this thread, nor their captive populations, have shown any evidence for such inbreeding depression.

Hybridizing itself can be extremely risky. When hybridizing you risk the female being injured or dying, either by the male itself, being unable to lay the clutch, or from the stress and drain of producing a potentially useless clutch of eggs. In addition to potentially killing one or both of the adults, it runs the risk of producing a clutch of weak babies that suffer before they die. Finally, it runs the risk of producing a clutch of hybrids that survive and encourages others to act irresponsibly and do it themselves. People should be working to breed pure species, not screwing with trying to produce crap.

While C. calyptratus is bred in large numbers in captivity and is not at risk of being lost in the captive hobby should new bloodlines no longer be available, the same can not be said for C. gracilis. This species is very rarely bred in captivity and should the importation of WC animals ever be banned (more likely than a ban on their export from every country they occur in), it is highly conceivable that they would not persist in captivity. While this is an extremely alarmist perspective, I use it to illustrate that more efforts should be directed toward efforts to breed this and other species in captivity, not on trying to make a bunch of hybrids that are genetically worthless for creating anything other than mutts.

Obviously in this case, it was an accident. I adamantly feel, however, that anyone who intentionally attempts to hybridize chameleon species is being extremely irresponsible.

Chris

 

[Chuck G]

Chris, you make me want to read something other than a comic book today.

 

[DavidBuchan]

If it makes them more valuable, the problem is that people will prioritize making money above establishing a healthy captive population (think about translucent calyptratus etc.). Suppose everyone would start mixing up calyptratus and gracilis (if they would produce fertile offspring) and genetic diversity would indeed increase, but we'd lose both "true" species in captivity... I don't think that's a positive thing.

Pedigree dog breeding has indeed led to severe health issues, but only because ''we'' first created different races through selective breeding.

Suppose everyone does it and both current species would no longer exist in captivity. Not going to happen though, is it? There are loads of responsible breeders who keep a close check, so the problem you envisage will not impact much at all.

Your comparisons to dogs lack any validity as they are not comparable cases.

First, Labradoodles are hybrids between two breeds of the same subspecies, Canis lupus familiaris. We are not talking here about hybridizing two chameleon breeds of the same subspecies or even species, we are talking about hybridizing two completely different chameleon species.

Secondly, the issues of pedigree dogs having severe health issues is a case of races that were developed as a result of artificial selection. In the case of chameleon species and even locales of a given chameleon species, they have evolved through natural selection. Natural selection does not artificially propagate or select for weak genes while artificial selection frequently does. In fact, weak traits are selected against in species that have undergone natural selection.

The problem with the argument that hybridizing two chameleon species in order to increase the genetic diversity of the offspring so as to prevent potential inbreeding depression is that this argument lacks the presence of an inbreeding depression problem in the first place. Inbreeding depression is a common problem in breeds with a long history of artificial selection resulting in increased homozygosity or in the frequency of deleterious recessive alleles, and in some taxa that have undergone a genetic bottleneck that by chance has resulted in the same aforementioned genetic results. Neither of the two species in this thread, nor their captive populations, have shown any evidence for such inbreeding depression.

Hybridizing itself can be extremely risky. When hybridizing you risk the female being injured or dying, either by the male itself, being unable to lay the clutch, or from the stress and drain of producing a potentially useless clutch of eggs. In addition to potentially killing one or both of the adults, it runs the risk of producing a clutch of weak babies that suffer before they die. Finally, it runs the risk of producing a clutch of hybrids that survive and encourages others to act irresponsibly and do it themselves. People should be working to breed pure species, not screwing with trying to produce crap.

While C. calyptratus is bred in large numbers in captivity and is not at risk of being lost in the captive hobby should new bloodlines no longer be available, the same can not be said for C. gracilis. This species is very rarely bred in captivity and should the importation of WC animals ever be banned (more likely than a ban on their export from every country they occur in), it is highly conceivable that they would not persist in captivity. While this is an extremely alarmist perspective, I use it to illustrate that more efforts should be directed toward efforts to breed this and other species in captivity, not on trying to make a bunch of hybrids that are genetically worthless for creating anything other than mutts.

Obviously in this case, it was an accident. I adamantly feel, however, that anyone who intentionally attempts to hybridize chameleon species is being extremely irresponsible.

Chris

The reason to mention dogs was to show that 'species' are still pretty ill-defined anyway (taxonomy draws lines where there are none sometimes, it has to....). Natural selection is one thing, artificial selection is another. Even the most responsible breeders are artificial selectors. Pedigree Chams may in the future suffer from all the 'responsible' breeding that is so passionately advocated on the forum That was all I was using the dogs to say

Obviously in the wild this sort of thing can happen. Darwin certainly thinks that occasional crossbreeds are required to keep the genepools healthy (not that he used the word 'gene' of course). I think it's silly to dismiss the hybrids as worthless and crap.........but I agree totally that do it on purpose is foolish in the extreme, only because of the potential health problems.

 

[chameleoman]

your right now a bunch of amateurs i CAN BET you!!!!!......are going to copy you and mess up and kill there chams. the only way i would try what you did is by watching yours growth and buy one of your babies and breed it with a veiled or something so NO ONE QOUTE THIS AS I DONT WANT TO START A DEBATE ON ANYTHING!!!!!

 

[james L]

Cute babies but they look just like baby veileds to me. I find it unlikely that a cross between calyptratus and gracilis would take so easily. Gracilis is so rarely bred and succucessfully hatched in captivity. Not trying to burst any bubbles or anything. Just my opinion. I hope you prove me wrong. Goodluck!

 

[pssh]

Pedigree Chams may in the future suffer from all the 'responsible' breeding that is so passionately advocated on the forum That was all I was using the dogs to say

Well, right now we dont have to worry much about it as all but calyptratus are unable to be bred to more than F5 without seeing at least some general health deterioration. Unless it's changed since I checked last, but either way, WC blood has to be bred into lines to keep them healthy. We are missing something...

 

[DavidBuchan]

Well, right now we dont have to worry much about it as all but calyptratus are unable to be bred to more than F5 without seeing at least some general health deterioration. Unless it's changed since I checked last, but either way, WC blood has to be bred into lines to keep them healthy. We are missing something...

Honestly, I know next to nothing about the state of captive breeding stock of different species, but I do know we don't have much to worry about and we are always missing something (only natural selection and God see all )
By far the more important thing is keeping an environment for them to stay healthy in the wild, but that's a whole different issue.........or is it?

 

[birdman5000]

well mabey with all the reckless breeding and ect some infertals will be good for people. when they get these as pets they cant breed them; than breeding can be put to people who are good at it and have experience. this cross might be a gr8 starter cham

NICE!
exactly!!!

 

[pssh]

Honestly, I know next to nothing about the state of captive breeding stock of different species, but I do know we don't have much to worry about and we are always missing something (only natural selection and God see all )
By far the more important thing is keeping an environment for them to stay healthy in the wild, but that's a whole different issue.........or is it?

Yeah, just pointing that out. IMO, "pure" breeding should never get to the point where animals have certain illnesses that they are prone to because of such breeding practices. Just wanted to bring it up so that people wouldn't go around "beating a dead horse."

 

[Julirs]

Simple question: Is anyone else noticing in the video the very definite presence of a screen cage? How was this an accident?

 

[pssh]

Well, I've seen members set up free ranges with an open cage as part of it (often times with a ficus tree and vines in front of it.) Some use them for a sort of "home base" for misting and other things. The door could have been open.

 

[chameleoman]

Simple question: Is anyone else noticing in the video the very definite presence of a screen cage? How was this an accident?

i dont remember reading anything saying, that this breeding expirement, was an accident???

 

[heartben]

yeahhh.. i commented on that a couple pages back and was surprised no one else brought it up. there are 2 posts mentioning that this was an accident.

 

[Julirs]

yeahhh.. i commented on that a couple pages back and was surprised no one else brought it up. there are 2 posts mentioning that this was an accident.

I scanned to see if anyone had brought it up-sorry I missed your post.

I am really not concerned with it being an accident or a breeding experiment, but I do question validity if facts are misrepresented.

 

[Frankcham]

This was an accident because these were my first two chameleons and I did not know u could not put them together and I had no idea that noone has try to cross these two chameleons. I had no intention on hurting any chameleon or hurting any reptile of any sort..so when this happen I was shock just like many people and even more shock when they started to hatch. But they hatch and I am proud to say they are doing good and are being taking care of very well.

 

[Julirs]

Common mistake. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Frankcham]

As for validity its in the video one is a graceful(male) and the other a female veiled...I am not an expert in chameleons or breeding..but reading the good and bad of this is very interseting so I thank everyone for their input. Even if they cant reproduce(which I don't know if they can or can not) I am very happy they have hatched and proud that they are the first of this kind