I agree. I'll never be able to nail my newest additions down to a particular locale. Also, no one should sell something as "X" locale if they do not have collection data, etc. I also keep dart frogs and that is a topic that comes up frequently.

At first, after I lost my Box Canyon male redback (although he wasn't red, he had a very nice orange coloration over most of his back, more so than other males I've seen from that locale, and he had an awesome temperament to boot) one of my concerns was that I would not be able to find a replacement male from that locale unless I took a trip out to the Twenty Nine Palms area of CA. However, now I'm not as much concerned with that. I just want to find a good, orange-backed male (preferably from a CA locale) to breed with my female Box Canyon chuck.

As a buyer, it wouldn't really mean much to me if I bought baby chucks from Box Canyon because I would have no idea what they would grow up to look like. In other words, I would rather buy an adult from that locale and select for certain coloration and temperaments. On the other hand, I would be much quicker to buy baby chucks from Crater Range AZ because, if my understanding is correct, there is more consistancy on how the males from that area will look like as adults.

So, for me anyway, it is more important to keep localities pure for certain locales primarily for the sake of people who might want to buy offspring. Keeping locales pure when it comes to dart frogs or even the various locales of panther chameleons may be worthwhile for other reasons as well, but the primary reason seems to be not to muddy the different locales so people will know what to expect as the animals mature, etc.

I'm probably opening up a whole can of worms here, but I always find it interesting how different groups (e.g. dart frog keepers vs snake keepers) feel so differently about this topic. I would definitely prefer to keep all the chuckwalla locales pure, but since breeders seem to be far and few between, I'm not going to sweat it when it comes to certain locales. I just want to gain experience and to eventually have the joy of hatching out some baby chucks (as long as I can be sure of finding buyers). When it comes to other locales though, as mentioned earlier, keeping the locales pure is much more important to me. And finally, in all cases, it should be made known to potential buyers whatever locality data is or is not available. Just my thoughts. How do you guys feel about this topic and why?

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]