The Ambilobe that was a Tamatave!!!

[Lizardlover]

well, a few days ago the breeder that i bought my panther sent me an e-mail saying that he needed pics of my cham to confirm something, so i sent him some pics only to find out that my panther wasnt an Ambilobe, he was a Tamatave! the eggs werent supposed to hatch at the same time but the hatching of the ambilobes triggered some tamatave to hatch and they got mixed in!

 

[royden]

Lucky you! Hard to find tamatave's these days.

 

[Lizardlover]

haha i know, i got him at a good price to ( $200 )

 

[lbesok]

How exciting! That is a good deal. I'd be interested in seeing some pictures of him!

 

[AncientCritters]

Nice pickup. My first panther was Tamatave. Ive been looking for one lately. Are you happy about the mix up?

 

[Lizardlover]

oh yeah definetly happy about the mix up! and ill post some pics in a few minutes

 

[SoCaliSon]

Nice I would be excited... Just hope you didn't have your heart set on an Ambilobe. It really doesn't say much for the breeder though. Even if I only have 1 clutch at a time, It gets marked with all the pertinent info, right on the cups that hold the eggs. I have only been trying my hand at breeding for several months; but to get clutches mixed up, I don't know if that is excuseable.

 

[Lizardlover]

 

[royden]

I could see it I guess. You think two different clutches are going to hatch several months apart, maybe only one incubator?

 

[Lizardlover]

hes got a bit more color than that but my more recent pics of him are on a different computer so ill post em later.

and the breeder is a great guy, he picked him up from another breeder, so its not really his fault, he actually has an account here ( pichispythons )

 

[Lizardlover]

from what i heard, they were in the same incubater and the other breeder thought they were gonna hatch seperately,

 

[SoCaliSon]

Not saying he is not a great guy... the fact that he contacted you to verify the mix up after the fact does show integrity and honesty. Just saying that when we pay as much as we do for these guys from breeders, you should be able to buy with confidence in what you are recieving. This mix up could have easily gone the other way, and had it happened that way I am sure the tone here would be a bit different.


*note: I have 1 incubator, and Two clutches incubating, both clearly marked with: Species, Sire & Dam, Date Layed, and Egg count.

Mistakes do happen though... Glad this one worked out for the better.

 

[Sang]

is there some way to even mark the eggs... why not even make a divider wall with plastic/plexi?

 

[Lizardlover]

yeah good point Joe, and yeah good thing it was a change for the better, he did offer me a male and female ambilobe though, but i was too attached to Karma

 

[Dsignrguy]

I like all the panthers, but I'm a bit more partial to the ambilobes....not a big fan of tamitave coloration.

I've noticed this happening a bit much lately, and sometimes supposedly from reputable dealers. There was a post a few days ago by someone who had purchased a cham from a bigger dealer in SoCal, and was told it was 100% nosy be, however once the colors came it, at was obviously not. My cham was also supposed to be from a blue-body/blue-bar ambanja. His bars are blue, but his body is green(and turns various shades og greens/yellows/orange/reds). Most that see him instantly think he's Ambilobe or at least partially ambilobe, and I think they may be right. One one way, I'm a little "erked" that I may not have gotten what I ordered/paid for.....but on the other hand, He's the BEST!!!! He's super dosile and has a great temperment. I love the little guy and wouldn't trade him for anything .

The biggest issue I see with this is if you plan on breeding, theres absolutely no way to be sure your not crossing bloodlines .

 

[Lizardlover]

yeah i wouldnt trade mine either, and yeah i was thinking about getting an ambilobe female, good thing i found out, and there really is no way to be sure, that is true, oh well overall im happy with what happened

 

[chris]

same thing happened to us and a lot of other ppl ours was sold to us a female ambilobe. i guess that shipment was marked ambilobe/tamatave from the exporter. Heres a thread on our boy that just started showing some color. https://www.chameleonforums.com/k2-fire-15912/

 

[Vibrant Chameleons]

The poor poor people that purchased females are screwed.

 

[Lizardlover]

yeah, atleast what happened to me was something better not worse, in my case i find it funny actually

 

[sandrachameleon]

Truly breeders should do their very best to ensure the buyer knows what he or she is buying. I've had a female sold to me as one thing and I'm pretty sure now she was likely of mixed heritage. She was still a fabulous animal. But she was not what I paid for.

That said, I dont really believe most captive animals can be 100% guaranteed truly purely this or that, since I doubt many (there are exceptions of course) breeders know the lineage back more than a few generations, and probably the original imports were somewhat suspect anyhow. I mean, the wild animals dont give a hoot if their breeding partner is "100% pure" anything. Mr happy ambilobe isnt concerned to know if the great grandfather of that nice little female ambilobe over there was 25% sambava. Heck he doesnt care if she's 100%sambava. The animals move about, local people in Madagascar have likely moved some about, importers guess or rely on local collectors who dont care or know that it matters, some importers just tell buyers what they want to hear. And if you see the pictures of some chameleons in various locations of Madagascar, they often look quite different from what North Americans seem to think they should look like.
Sorry, my two cents seems to have turned into $1.50! LOL but still not worth much. LOL