Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last year we had featured on our web site a possible new leather line. A couple of "fluke" leather back dragons was produced by a friend of ours Gino Morialle. No ties to the American or Italian leathers on the market. Two leathers were hatched out of appx. 20 eggs from normal scaled parents. I spoke to a couple of breeders who said they have produced fluke leathers but the trait was not passed on to the offispring. Gino kept the two which happened to be males and bred them this year. There were 20 eggs in the first group 17 hatched out Leathers!! Talk about a dominant trait. The second group of eggs were hit with mold only 6 made it. There were 4 leathers from the 6 surviving eggs. I was able to get a pair from Gino and plan on some exciting new crosses for next year. Pictures will be available when my my computer cooperates with me. These dragons are very smooth and are comparable to the Italian line. A few are without side spikes. Some of the dragons are already floating out there as to Gino selling a few of them wholesale for $35 last year. They were sold with other dragons, not knowing what they were. I happened to catch a glimps of one of the leathers prior to him shipping them out...Talk about right place right time. Just wanted to share the good news. These guys are approx. 8 weeks old and some of the fastest growing/ healthiest dragons I have seen. Awsome job Gino!!

Do you have any pics?
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www.moonstonedragons.com

So this is the recessive Leatherback gene that has surfaced? I know the Ital Leatherback seems to be a co-dominant and cannot be recessive. Is my understand of this correct?