Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had an interesting email and decided to ask all you what does this mean to you.

If a dragon is said to be a "PURE LINE" whats does that say to you? I had always considered it to be a line untainted by inbreeding, but the email I saw indicates that it would be a line that is acutally inbreed to keep the same traits or "purity of the line blood"

Whats your opinions?

I think I would consider pure as, only normal genes, or only red genes with no other color cross etc. Not mixing morphs. But it's hard telling what someone else would consider pure.
But then again, morphs were created by mixing..lol

I think it's just a sales tactic. How can you get pure anything in a dragon? Pure what? Hey,,, I have a pure dragon,, it has no fish genes what so ever so it is as pure as a dragon comes. LOL.

Joel R

P.S.
The subject line was a joke.

n/p

I believe PURE means that it's genetics come from one line. The problem with this is that "morphs" are just arbitrary names given by breeders. You could call all your dragons "Red delicious" no matter what their color or background (maybe you have a sandfire, a blood, a normal and a hypo) and if you bred them you would have PURE "Red Delicious" morph dragons. I think the term only holds weight for long established bloodlines such as Sandfire. The reason people started using the term PURE sandfire is most likely because the Sandfire morph started to become synonymous with color, no matter what the dragons lineage, and a distinction had to be made(although most breeders can eventually trace their dragons back to Sandfire Dragon Ranch anyway...).

Peter

To me... it means absolutely nothing.
Well - it does tell me that whoever is selling them is most likely doing it for the first time and probably doesn't know a whole lot about them.
(;

others are meaning when they say pure... I always assumed it was a P. vitticeps without inbreeding so no chance of common genetic inbred problems

Someone used the expression, pure lines to mean a genetic line, to me that would indicate inbreeding.

But then German Gaint is considered a genetic line, and they were bred for size and robustness, and from my understanding, avoiding inbreeding.... Just was curious what others thought this meant

Right on, I see what you're getting at. To me, "Pure" just seems like an iffy term, I guess. Someone could go out and say, "Snake f/s -pure Joe Shmoe's Stock" and that would be true, But, if he said "Pure Purple Snake f/s" how would one define pure - or purple? Depends on who you ask, I would think. People just need to be a little careful in their wording, sometimes things can be easily misinterpreted.
(:

Pure breed is more a term associated with the purity of a distinct breed of any animal. In a breeders perspective, pure line dragon may be considered 'pure-bred'. Sandfire dragons may be considered a 'breed' of dragon, or even the German Giants.

In this context, pure breed would be a breed untainted by other breeds..so basically sandfire dragon bred to another sandfire dragon (hopefully from different parents). Such things are done till the phase 'breeds pure' as in, all offspring will show the same characteristics. Hence, you have pure bred huskies, or Siamese cats.

But in bearded dragons, I really don't think they have any colour morph breeding pure to my knowledge. I would certainly take any such advertising with a grain of salt...till I can learn about the actual bloodlines of the offered dragons...if they are from parents who are actualy brother and sister to eachother...from a line of other brother/sister crossings, the health wouldn't be all that reliable.