"People push for morphs for several reasons."



People not only push for new morphs because it is the herpetocultural equivalent of discovering a new or rare species, but also because of the premium prices that new morphs can be sold for and the ego boost that goes along with being the first to produce them.



I agree for the most part with your comments regarding locality being irrelevant after a few generations of captive breeding, but I believe that some locality traits remain even after generations of selective breeding. Take for instance the Applegate (Huachuca) and Bauble (Santa Rita) and Ric Blair (Patagonia) reduced black pyros. They look nothing like the wild pyros found in the same location as the original breeding stock was collected due to the generations of line breeding for extremely reduced black. But, they do for the most part retain the low band counts common for SE Arizona pyros. It all depends on what the breeder selects for. If you selectively breed for the "wild" phenotype, it is possible to keep that locality look for more generations than if you selectively breed just "the pretty ones".



Look at pics of some of the wild mexicana. It would be hard to sell a lot of them as captive bred animals because they would be considered too ugly by most. The almighty dollar is the biggest decision maker behind selective breeding.



Greg

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