Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I notice that my two beardies have different body shapes to them and I don't know if is just becuase of genetics or some other reason that I need to know about. Smeagol, the dragon with the full tail, has a real roundish evenly distributed stomach between his front and hind legs. Gollum my little stub tail has most of the bulk of his stomach towards his hind legs making is body appearence more of a spade shape. They eat the same,are thriving, growing fast, and have fat stomachs it just seems like they are shaped different. Is this normal or should I be concerned about this.

more fat in the lower tummy area because he does not have all the tail to store it?

Richard Wells who is in Australia, named p. henrylawsoni and has done many field studies and specimen studies of bearded dragons has noted many differences in the same species from different areas, besides size differences, he also believes that others species have hybridized in border areas. He has observed what he believes to be a vitticeps X mitchelli, vitticeps x barbata and vitticeps x hernylawsoni in border areas where they come into contact with each other(dragons species are rarely found in each others territory)

He theorizes that some of these morphs are sympatric and the ones that are not will eventually after a few generations cancel each other out and the animals takes on the genetic appearance of the species that it mates with more down the line. It is very possible that dragons we have in the US have some past lines of hybridization frpm the wild and are showing traits of that. We have seen this in the same clutches, with some having more compact and solid weight bodies and others longer and narrow.

Here is the whole article form his emails:
New species of bearded dragon