What would be a sick breed with a Faly?

Why not do a pure Nosy Faly breeding and a clutch of N. Faly and Ambanja type crosses, if that's what makes you happy? Sure, you may not have the easiest time getting retail market price for them, but there are a number of large online vendors who'll buy up a clutch of crosses and then sell them as such.

They're your animals. Your babies (pure or not) will never go "back" to Madagascar. I say do what makes you happy.


:D thanks man i was getting eaten alive for just speaking my mind. i just dont want n e 1 to hate me for being curious
 
What happens to all the females from this cross breeding ? Is the breeder going to run a background check on the buyer our is he going to off load a bunch of chameleons that nobody wants for half price and who knows where they go from there. A panther can conceivably have well over a hundred offspring in a year that's alot of fulfillment over the span of her life. That is more like gene polluting then self fulfillment.

The whole thing is that you have this preconcieved notion that all cross breeders are cheats and con artists and will lie, i have the other thought that all people in that position of power would be honest and forth right to the lineage so their customers know what they are getting
 
The whole thing is that you have this preconcieved notion that all cross breeders are cheats and con artists and will lie, i have the other thought that all people in that position of power would be honest and forth right to the lineage so their customers know what they are getting>>>>>>>>>

Well, the problem is that in the time I've kept these animals, I've met far more crooks than good, decent people who I could trust. Sad but true. In this hobby, most of the peole you can trust are right here, either posting or sponsering. Only a few others I can think of, in fact. An "unknown" individual is a wild card, and it just takes one to spoil the lineage. When the lineage is so important to some people ( and I'm sure Dean's comment was serious, and not intended to be a sharp or nasty remark - it DOES make a difference to him, simple fact.), the issue becomes emotional as well as scientific.

Cross breeding colorations of the same species is just like, well, different races of humans mixing. Biologically, nothing wrong with it. It isn't like crossing panthers and senegals. There are opinions involved here - educated ones, too. Make a simple factual error, and it's easy to explain.
Questions that have answers based on people's opinions(which are based on facts AND Feelings) will be long winded, multi-page, and multi-threaded. they wil recur many times a year, over and over.

Because it isn't a simple yes no, right wrong answer, and it requires debate to fully understand. that's why the chameleonforums is the best learnign tool out there for these animals - reading a book can't give you tailored answers to your questions, and a long heated discussion!

It's all good until it becomes insults. This hasnt' gotten there. May be a first.. I dunno.
 
look at like a tree

1.)you will be selling some of the offspring most likely as crosses- you can trust yourself ( no one can really argue you crossing and being honest about them is bad )

2.) but who ever you sell them do.....can we trust they will represent correctly if they sell?
or will they go for making a buck?

3.) even worse if they breed them, and have many to sell will they represent them correctly?

4.) it just gets worse and worse.
 
Cross breeding colorations of the same species is just like, well, different races of humans mixing.

Except human crosses are the result of voluntary reproduction, and are usually much more interesting and attractive phenotypically, although I suppose the latter part of the argument is purely subjective. Still, I'm not sure the analogy stands to reason-- human diversification occurs naturally (and is not wrong either biologically, socially or otherwise). At the same time, I have nothing against the natural diversification of locales, populations or "races" of any given organism, and this does not include diversification as a result of habitat loss or modification by humans.

Still, what we do with these animals will have little impact on the future of the species in the wild, whether we maintain their "purity" or not. What may have more significant impact on their conservation (in terms of over-collection) is if their successful and continued reproduction in captivity (as pures, crosses or otherwise) can satisfy the commercial demand (much like leopard geckos and bearded dragons have done), and thus decrease the need for importation.

Having said that, the philosophical (and personal) question remains as to whether it's best (for our own satisfaction) to maintain genetic consistency among captive taxa, and I reiterate my strong preference for doing so, as I am more interested in the study of these animals for what they have evolved to be over millions of years, and not in creating domesticated, designed, accessories for personal gain (financial or otherwise).

Happy breeding!

Cheers,

Fabián
 
Well, you're right - human crosses are more interesting and attractive - I'm Sicilian. You don't get much more mixed than that! Hehe.

I dont' see any issues with the hybrids, in principle. But I gree that my personal interest lean more towards study and understanding of the animals, less towards "lets see what kind of colors we can get!!!!"

Of course, there's a part of me that's interested in that as well.

The best statement I can make about the issue is as follows:

I would not buy a CB panther when I was young. They were dirt cheap, too. The reason I would not buy them - the reason the demand was low - was because you didnt' know what it was going to look like. Only when people put their reputations out, and importations became more reliable (as to where they came from), did you see demand and price increase for CB panthers. Because people knew what they were getting. NOBODY wants this again - mixing locales is starting on this road.

I've seen people say that mixing locales was out of greed. There's a heck of a lot more money in breeding pure locales than mixes. It just so happens that the demand and profitability of pure locales is in sync with people's desire to preserve the natural locales. when you can reliably breed a line of hybrids, it will be in demand. For the time being, need for profit will keep the bloodlines preserved.

I think everyone will agree that eventually, the time will come when you can make money off of designer bloodlines. When that comes, preservation will not be aided by commercial demand - it will be up to breeders themselves. For a lot of people, that is a huge concern.
 
i wasnt at all against crossing until i saw this thread. not sure i am 100% against, but now im looking at what the goal in crossing is.

IMHO if not done for research, its just to produce color traits or worse just out of curiosity ( although that is research in a way, but to what end...cross genes inevitably being misrep. when sold )

to me the risk is not worth it for either reason mentioned above. out of respect for others that strive and have worked hard to keep clean lines, and also for future keepers. they deserve the chance to have access to cbb clean lines.

i always kind of thought of chameleon keepers a step about the rest or at least very dedicated as a general rule of thumb. and its no surprise to me that the majority advocate against crossing. its not that most dont want a crazy, one of a kind, beautiful chameleon( who wouldnt ) but its that there are risks.

pardalis are colorful enough IMHO there are soo many locales to choose from with variations in each locale, what more could you really want? if you're not satisfied with the color selection presently/ naturally available then i dont understand that. Esp when you consider that color is not the only physical difference in locales.

i'm starting to see the challenge of maintaining pure lines and satisfaction of doing so.

as i said, i see cham keepers as a step above the rest, and i see maintaining pure lines harder and more work than not. we have an opportunity to keep things clean here, some hobbies dont have that luxury anymore ( snakes ) i think we are up to the challenge, i think we like challenges and the type of reward that comes with facing those challenges and over coming them.......we would keep chameleons if we didnt

if someone had a gun to my head, it would be ank though...lol

just my two
 
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part of the thing is that chameleons are just now being kept alive. This itself is something to be thankful for! When I started the hobby, Chameleons just "died". You were supposed to expect them all to die in 6 months.

Yeah, we have designer geckos and snakes - but how hard is it to keep and breed leopard geckos? They've been established for what, 50 years or so? Some locales of pardalis have been discovered just recently.
 
What is pure? And how can you prove it? I laugh at the high possiblity that most of the purists out their conatin mutts in their collection already that they are unaware of... And still sell them or keep them as "Pure Locales"... because they are as far as you know. Means nothing to me. I have an understanding of generally what colors come from what areas... but do I accept that as an absolute...no way... We are talking about something that is existing in nature and constantly evolving.

I look at Panthers lately as just what you can see, A blue Bar on yellow Background... A Solid blue...whatever. I am not going to sell something as a pure ambilobe, or pure nosy be, when in actuallity I have no way to gurantee that. I have heard even the most devout purists admit, not even the fresh shipments can be guarnteed... So why put so much market weight on the name of city they were shipped from? Why not buy based on the look you are looking for. And breed based on the look you are trying to accomplish. I would love to see how all these purists can gurantee that their Pardalis are pure... How they can prove that the boxes that came in labeled "Ambilobe" contain females that would produce offspring that carry the colortation that we decided to label Ambilobe. Or that the CB breeders they bought didn't have poluted genes. We put so much weight into something that is impossible to prove... as well as an extra couple hundred bucks on the price tag. I have seen pics of Wild speicimen that in no way resemble the locale they were spotted, as we recognize the Locale. Would we consider that pure? How can we prove if it is or not?

People call Hybrids ugly...Hideous... whatever... It is all opinion, and we are in a hobby where often times people carry VERY VERY strong oppinions. The experience or reputation of someone with an oppinion does not change the fact that it is still an oppinion... and someone elses can differ very much, and yet neither person is right or wrong. I have seen some beatuifull hybrids... And love my own... I have also recieved tons of compliments on how beautiful he is.

I still think that the price of Hybrids is so much less and they are harder to sell because we have people in the community who are looked up to who preach their oppionions as if it should be law... and a lot of people listen. It is still held as a very taboo by a lot of the people who were in it from the get go, when all they had to work and start with was wild caught "pure locales". At this point it seems almost futile. It almost makes more sense to me when people sell under designer names such as "Blue Diamond" or "Picasso"...A name that has no possiblity of False advertising, because the name is just representing the coloration(and ONLY the coloration) of the animal.

Sorry if my ideas got all scattered I typed this in a reall hurry. Gonna miss my train.

EDIT: No time to fix my typos either...Bummer.. Ill come back later.

~Joe
 
Well said, Joe. The whole terminology for panthers is incorrect anyway. As Calavera said earlier, localities are places, not appearances. NO panthers come in with true locality collection data anyway(eg. what street corner, GPS co-ords, etc). To complicate matters, at least one of the major importers here does not receive ANY locality data whatsoever with their shipments. What should happen to all those female wild-caughts with nothing on their bags? Never breed them?
 
kent and joe,

what you both said IMHO, is even more reason to keep things as pure as we can.

if we cant even guarentee pure sources, its of even more importance to maintain locale purity ( phrase loosely used, but you get the point )as much as possible

wouldn't you agree?

i go back to my previous post

to me the risk is not worth it for either reason mentioned above. out of respect for others that strive and have worked hard to keep clean lines, and also for future keepers. they deserve the chance to have access to cbb clean lines.


pardalis are colorful enough IMHO there are soo many locales to choose from with variations in each locale, what more could you really want? if you're not satisfied with the color selection presently/ naturally available then i dont understand that. Esp when you consider that color is not the only physical difference in locales.


just my two

for one, im not 100% personally against crossing, but the majority of the keepers in this community are ( and we are a community, and have a reputation for being a step above the rest ) so thats why out of respect for others i wont cross, i feel like its contributing to this community and the way it feels in the big picture..

and again color is not the only difference in pardalis " locales ", so that is to be considered as well, and has yet to be discussed on this thread .


there are negative affects to crossing, when most keepers want " pure " lines, look at what happened to snakes
 
What is pure? And how can you prove it? I laugh at the high possiblity that most of the purists out their conatin mutts in their collection already that they are unaware of... And still sell them or keep them as "Pure Locales"... because they are as far as you know. Means nothing to me. I have an understanding of generally what colors come from what areas... but do I accept that as an absolute...no way... We are talking about something that is existing in nature and constantly evolving.

I look at Panthers lately as just what you can see, A blue Bar on yellow Background... A Solid blue...whatever. I am not going to sell something as a pure ambilobe, or pure nosy be, when in actuallity I have no way to gurantee that. I have heard even the most devout purists admit, not even the fresh shipments can be guarnteed... So why put so much market weight on the name of city they were shipped from? Why not buy based on the look you are looking for. And breed based on the look you are trying to accomplish. I would love to see how all these purists can gurantee that their Pardalis are pure... How they can prove that the boxes that came in labeled "Ambilobe" contain females that would produce offspring that carry the colortation that we decided to label Ambilobe. Or that the CB breeders they bought didn't have poluted genes. We put so much weight into something that is impossible to prove... as well as an extra couple hundred bucks on the price tag. I have seen pics of Wild speicimen that in no way resemble the locale they were spotted, as we recognize the Locale. Would we consider that pure? How can we prove if it is or not?

People call Hybrids ugly...Hideous... whatever... It is all opinion, and we are in a hobby where often times people carry VERY VERY strong oppinions. The experience or reputation of someone with an oppinion does not change the fact that it is still an oppinion... and someone elses can differ very much, and yet neither person is right or wrong. I have seen some beatuifull hybrids... And love my own... I have also recieved tons of compliments on how beautiful he is.

I still think that the price of Hybrids is so much less and they are harder to sell because we have people in the community who are looked up to who preach their oppionions as if it should be law... and a lot of people listen. It is still held as a very taboo by a lot of the people who were in it from the get go, when all they had to work and start with was wild caught "pure locales". At this point it seems almost futile. It almost makes more sense to me when people sell under designer names such as "Blue Diamond" or "Picasso"...A name that has no possiblity of False advertising, because the name is just representing the coloration(and ONLY the coloration) of the animal.

Sorry if my ideas got all scattered I typed this in a reall hurry. Gonna miss my train.

EDIT: No time to fix my typos either...Bummer.. Ill come back later.

~Joe

Wow, what a red herring.

I don't think anyone accepts the current, mostly interpretative, morphology-based, method of identification as an absolute, not even the "purists," and until science can conduct a comprehensive genetic survey of all populations of pardalis in the wild, we'll continue to use the current "standard." Sorry to break it to you, but contrary to your statement, it would, in fact, be possible to map the pardalis genome and determine, with incontrovertible accuracy, the phylogenetic distinction between the populations-- uncovering not only how different each locale is (and where they're headed evolutionarily), but also how close they are to being the same locale, or a mix of two. Of course, we are not there yet but that doesn't make any current effort futile. That sounds to me like an absolute statement.

Furthermore, I could not disagree with you more regarding your definition of "opinions." Everyone may be entitled to express their opinions, but there are good opinions, and then there are bad opinions. Anyone may take an agnostic position and say that it is neither right nor wrong, but that's the easiest and usually most useless position.

I don't doubt you've received compliments on your "hybrids" as much as someone who studies wolf zoogeography and ecology receives compliments on her Chihuahua or Yorkshire terrier. Does that make wild canine study or classification futile? No. Does that make chihuahuas less "cute"? No. But that's mostly because chihuahuas aren't cute. :)

Cheers,

Fabián
 
I agree on keeping locale pure for research purpose in University and zoo (in case of the need to reintroduce chameleons to the wild).
Other than that as long as you are not doing inbreeding i say do whatever you like and try your best to represent the hatchlings in the most honest way possible.

Especially, when you are presenting rarer locale.
There is nothing more annoying than wishing for certain colors in nosy Faly's baby only to find out the baby grew up to be completely different.

I can see potentially it can get messy after the chameleon changes hand multiple times.
But, I like the fact that a mix locale is cheaper than the pure one.
imo, cheaper panther is a breath of fresh air nowadays.

just my thought.
 
I remember when panthers were called Red, blue or raibow - kinda like Italian Ice flavors...(don't know why, but I've been craving real Italian Ice lately - can't get it off my mind..)

The holy grail at the time was pure bright BLUE panthers. Most others were rainbow or red.

When you look at the variability in the imports, you see how the "typical" coloration we think of is not the only color you see in the locales. Years ago, many panthers woudl come in with all sorts of colors. When you got blue ones in, they were blue-green, green some pure blue, some blue and red...etc. The theory at the time (from the people getting them in ) was that the shipments were somewhat regional - Ambanja, Nosey Be, surrounding areas, wich had similar colors, were grouped together - but who really knows?

With the quotas, and premium on quality specimens, I woudl suspect that the collectors cherry pick what is wanted. The reasons being that I see distinctive panthers when they come in. Most of them are quite colorful and representative of what you woudl expect from their locale.

When I was young, I saw a lot more panthers available WC. The variety in coloration was greater. The majority of specimens were rather unimpressive, being all green or greenish blue. Some had red stripes, some bluish or yellow stripes. But most were really generic green, and nothing realy stood out.

I have been out of the loop, with regards to the import of panthers and such, since I stopped working at the reptile shows. It does seem that exports are of much higher quality animals (as far as coloration) than it was in the past.

The real problem I see, though, is in the classification. As Fabian stated, the current way of describing the animals is not really absolute - and it may be as arbitrary as color variations in some case.

It would be extremely interesting to conduct a real scientific study on the locales of panther chameleons, taking photos, GPS readings, tissue samples, etc. compare morphology, habitats, seasonal variability, predation, etc. Or just take some pics and DNA samples for comparison. Either way, I'm all for it. As interesting as it would be to see how the locales are different, I would rather find out WHY.

So, just to let you guys know, if anyone has plans on doing some sort of research, and plans on going overseas to study chameleons - do not hesitate to let me know! Not only can I carry a lot of stuff, I have connections in the GPS business - maybe sat phones too.
 
Now I know this article is about M. Viridis specimens and not F. pardalis specimens, however, Maxwell's main points on locality are true for pretty much all herps with noticeable phenotype variation without a "sub-species" title. More on this topc can be read in his book or at this link:

http://www.finegtps.com/Editorials.html#TheLocalityDebate

Maxwell says: "It must be recognized by any serious and credible locality collector that without proper documentation, it is not possible or correct to label an animal locality specific. Further, locality-specific is a term used to designate animals that are documented from an exact geographic location regardless of appearance." -Greg Maxwell-

This is just one of the main points I feel to be absolutely true when it comes to labeling our panthers. Unless we ourselves gathered them from their specific geographic location (true locale), we cannot get upset about people who choose to breed their own CB panther morphs, panthers who are more then likely generations away from their WC predecessors. Now I will admit, there are some pardalis types which show less phenotype variation among their type then others (Nosy Faly in this case) but for those that can be mistaken for one "locality" or the other, who is to say that they are "pure". I have seen so many posts on this forum about locality identification amongst new owners, "Is it an ambilobe or an ambanja? Is this a red-bar Ambilobe or a sambava" and I have seen great variation in the guesses of those who reply. If we can't always tell, who is to say that the people gathering them can? The only real way is to gather a WC specimen from a documented geographic region, or "locale". Thats just my opinion anyways.

-Cala-
 
Once again for the record, I personally prefer panthers that look like they came from the wild and carry a certain regional phenotype myself. We don't live in a perfect world where getting it right in regards to not mixing locales is possible. Until all imported females' region of collection are included with them, until all breeders take a stand against crossing, until all retailers become HONEST:rolleyes:, until..., until...., until....it's not going to go away. It's already been said before, if you want a "pure" regional-type panther, there will always be reliable entities breeding them and making them available. Know your source. Right now I have a clutch of panthers that I believe are crossed-locale, but I honestly don't know because there was no collection data from the female. I bred them because I wanted to pass along the genes of a huge, very personable, friendly sire. I'd like it if they all turned out to be Ambilobe-types, but breeding him was more important to me than *cough* "pure" regional appearance. I intend to concentrate on regional morphs in the future, but I in no way feel like I'm an irresponsible hobbyist for having a couple clutches of crosses hatch. In my mind, the only legitimate reason for keeping locale-types pure would be if re-introduction was planned. The rest is all just personal preferences, of which we all have our own.
 
Joe and Kent,

I disagree with some of your statements, not because I don't understand what you are saying or agree with you in the strictest sense but because I believe your taking things to an extreme that is not realistic. At the strictest level, I think this extreme is dangerous to breeding efforts because its one step removed from "F- it, lets breed everything to everything without any attempts what-so-ever to maintain a natural state given the best information and knowledge we have available to us." The reality is that any coordinated effort to preserve any state (natural or unnatural) requires a certain degree of compromise to accommodate realistic constraints that we cannot escape.

I believe the biggest problem that lies between your standpoint and my own is with how we each are defining locale and the line between adjacent locales. We name pardalis locales based on geographic points in the proximity that help us communicate to others where something can be found. Some locales are heavily isolated (islands) while others are less so. Additionally, some locales that have been coined are closer together then others. The problem becomes establishing a reasonable standard for differentiation between locale assignments. If you say that "Locale AGH" is found along a 300m stretch between 1st and 3rd St and that "Locale BFE" is found along the same 300m stretch between 4th and 6th St, obviously your geographic resolution is so high that natural movements of individuals interferes with locale differentiation and the establishment of a differentiable locale standard is impossible. On the other side of the coin, if your resolution is too large, natural movements are no longer an issue but we have no ability to account for variations seen within the range that do occur in a discernible pattern.

Realistically, there needs to be recognition that just because a locale is named after a town does not mean that anything immediately outside the town's city limits are suddenly not that same locale. Lines are not that clean cut and defining them completely based on our own geopolitical lines is useless. The complication is that at the same time, if we are going to use that town as a guide-point to define a locale, a certain distance away needs to be recognized as different enough to warrant exclusion from that locale-type. This is a very fuzzy line and designation when you are talking about locales on the mainland without clear boundaries. Islands are easy but the issue comes with animals collected a certain distance away from a given geographic guide-point. I don't know that we can create a clear boundary standard and while this is problematic for absolute definition purposes of a locale, it should not be reason to outright ignore our best ability to group breeding efforts into a framework of locales based on our best knowledge and information. This is not an unreasonable task by any stretch of the imagination when you are comparing locales such as Ankaramy, Ambanja, Ambilobe, Diego Suarez and Tamatave, to name a few mainland locales with fairly distinct differences between them. When you start differentiating Ambanja, Ankify and Ambato (Nosy Faly could also be thrown into this group), it becomes more difficult but I would argue that with care, not impossible or unreasonable either.

One of the first steps in ensuring locale type purity is establishing a semi-loose definition of a locale based on appearance. As I said, this definition needs to be semi-loose because there are variations within populations and not every animal will match a definition perfectly. This same issue is seen in the definition of different species yet scientists are able to get around it and still differentiate in most cases (this is why holotypes and paratypes are used). By examining specimens at given locales in the wild, by looking at location specific photographs, by examining countless animals with reasonably reliable background information, etc., experienced individuals become much more accustom to differentiating locales. There are subtle indicators that end up being quite reliable in most circumstances, the same way certain features are good indicators of a species even when some might indicate something different. Developing an ability to do this takes time, practice and learning.

In a perfect world, when we bought something labeled as a particular locale, we could have reasonable blind faith that we are receiving what we pay for. Unfortunately we know that we can't simply rely on this all the time. Collectors can collect animals in places that are more accessible to them rather then in the area they tell their buyer. Exporters can fill orders with individuals from another locale because they have them available (particularly with females). Importers can pass off animals as a given locale when they don't have locale designations or they otherwise don't have that locale to provide for an order. A breeder could sell an animal as a pure locale without having raised up the offspring to check for outright signs of it not being pure. There are a lot of potential issues. The key is being an informed buyer and looking for signs of what locale they are, even in the face of possibly losing part of your investment. If a group of animals does not appear to be identified correctly, assume that none of the females ID can be relied on and that with the males you will need to compare general locale attributes to narrow down what they are. With offspring, the first time a female is bred, male progeny should be raised up and examined for signs of hybridization and locale in the case of CH clutches. There are ways to improve your ability to obtain accurately identified locale types.

Obviously there are instances when an accurate locale on an individual cannot be reasonably reached. This is particularly true of females especially when their CH progeny do not clearly indicate a particular locale. Even males from a well known locale can show unusual coloration that could bring into question their true identity in the absence of good information and knowledge to help define it. These animals should be regarded as unknown and not put into a locale type if the aforementioned techniques of IDing imports cannot come to a reasonably confident ID.

In my opinion, the goal of breeders should be to establish pardalis bloodlines that represent variations occurring in a discernible geographic pattern. These variations should be designated at a geographic resolution that is realistically conducive to dividing these geographic variations. Further, there should be recognition that depending on the variability at the locale type in question and adjacent types, the appropriate geographic resolution will vary. Expectations for different locale types should be broad enough to encompass typical individual variation within the geographic type but differentiation between similar types should be based on an effort to combine the best set of information available to us as a community and our own experience. Ultimately I believe breeders should employ their best ability to group breeding efforts into a framework of locales based on our best knowledge and information. Experience and care in selecting breeders and care in verifying the progeny a female throws are vital to establishing bloodlines with a reasonable expectation of purity. This falls on both the original breeder and the buyer and was one of the reasons I tried to setup the CCBTD. As a buyer, you should request photos of the bloodlines (sire, dam and male progeny from the dam). There are many bloodlines that well known breeders have going that I would not be comfortable adding to lines I had put together in an attempt to build a "pure" locale type bloodline. At the end of the day, I think we all need to attempt to do everything in each of our power to maintain purity in our own lines because who knows when importation will stop and we will be stuck with what we have.

Chris

Note: I had to walk away from writing this so many times that hopefully my train of thought and argument is logical. We'll see I guess.
 
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