THE TRUTH ABOUT CROSSBREEDING
THE TRUTH ABOUT CROSSBREEDING
DO NOT CROSS BREED LOCAL FORMS OF PANTHER CHAMELEONS!
DO NOT CROSSBREED SPECIES!
The herpetoculture is an important hobby and industry that not only entertaining and bringing joy, but it plays an important role in preserving the gene pool of wild populations of reptiles and amphibians in captivity. If managed properly, in case of need, animals can be reintroduced to the wild in case they will retain genetic purity. The destruction of natural biotopes is so fast, so that the need becomes more and more real every day. There are examples of animals which are extinct in the wild but still surviving in captivity, such as: Scimitar-horned Oryx, California Condor, Przewalski's Horse, Hawaiian Crow, Spix's Macaw and from herpetology: Gopher Tortoise, Chinese Alligator, Flatwoods Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project focuses on several amphibian species from Panama that are critically endangered due to the chytrid fungus.
These examples highlight how captive breeding programs play a crucial role in conservation efforts to save species that are facing extinction or even extinct in the wild.
The breeding of males and females belonging to different entities such as species, subspecies, populations, races is in biology called cross-breeding or bastardization and the resulting offspring is referred to as cross-breed, cross, or bastard.
The "locales" of Furcifer pardalis have been clearly demonstrated to be entities that represent separate evolutionary lineages of various level
of distinction. Some can be even treated as separate species, some represent divergent lineages at subspecific status.
Many breeders give a big accent on breeding pure linegaes belonging to one population, but there is a certain group wanting to play God and "create" unknown color combinations and fenotypes. The natural form are sooo beautiful as such, why to do such a sinful disaster, I can not understand, the more it is ununderstandable after many scientists and highly educated people expressed their negative recommendation and the more when the practice shows that the crossbreeds are leas fit and less viable or even show deformities and lethal failures.
To crossbreed separate evolutionary lineages leads to pollution of the genetics and to genetically conditioned oroblems like diseases, lowered fitness, reproductive disorders, which does not happen within the lineages obviously and if so, for other reasons (e.g. Inbreeding).
Some of the local forms (in the US often called locales) are well established in captivity and some not.
More rare forms need to be established rather than dissolved in the population of cross-bred animals with not understandable genetics. The F1 has a gene pool mix at level 50:50. Thanks to free recombination of genes, sny further generation has UNKNOWN mix of original genome. If someone states eg that the animal has 25% of Ambanja and 75% of Ambilobe, it is a nonsense. You do not lnow, starting from F2, what genetics the bastard/crosses have. Moreover, you can never breed them back to pure lineages, they will for ever be polluted and cause potential problems for the captive populations, that are already vastly reported, especially from the breeds from the US, where from F2 bastards further, the offspring is leas viable and less able to reproduce, sometimes it is even impossible. So even to create linebreeding projects, crosses are a wrong choice.
Another problem is, if the breeding would effect only the color, then it would be less harmful than what is reality: it changes inner organs, enzymes, immune system - everything. And we can not see it. but we have catastrophic examples of crossbreeding and inbreeding other reptiles like the pitiful ball pythons, that have to be killed as they move in circles or deformed beaded dragons without scales or missing internal organs.
Crosses, that happened already either deliberately or through mistakes or through mislabelled animals from the wild should be:
1. Treated separately
2. Clearly labelled as such
3. Sold and treated as pets only
4. Breeding on them should be vigorously discouraged
The cross breeding can potentially happen in the wild also, but it has so far not been scientifically proven. If it happens naturally, then only amongst geographically close local forms and it happens rarely if at all, possibly within contact zones between the entities or through accident. This however is nothing what we should nowadays do deliberately in captivity for the reasons mentioned.
The crossbreeding of species is even more ridiculous and meaningless. the genetics is further distant and divergent and the likelihood the offspring will be deformed or limitedly viable and unfertile is high. Crossbreeds are known within the genera (see the attached list) and all died very soon.
it is a hardly formidable misuse of the rare and gentle genetic material. For me, it is really unacceptable, that in period, where we as humanity are on the edge of survival of the Planet thanks to our irresponsible behavior, pollution tcb and wasting resources, someone even comes up with the idea to damage genetics of animals on the edge of extinction.
Anyone who is deliberately doing crossbreeding for other than scientific purposes should reconsider doing it and anyone who takes the liberty to approve or even recommend it should abscond from doing it. no scientific authority would approve/recommend it unless for special justified purpose and under strictly controlled conditions.
I dedicated my life to chameleons and to helping people to understand...
I owe it to them.
Help me to explain the global community the importance of Genetic Conservation.
Known crossbreds of chameleons:
F. pardalis x F. oustaleti
F. pardalis x F. verrucosus
C. calyptratus x C. arabicus
C. calyptratus x C. gracilis
C. calyptratus x C. zeylanicus
T. jacksonii x T. sternfeldi
read more:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/panther-hybrids.329/