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HOW DOES A SUBSPECIES COME ABOUT AND WHY? THE REASON I ASK IS BECAUSE MY WIFE AND I SAW MANY WIERD THINGS IN SOME OF THE WILD JACKSONS. THINGS LIKE VERY HIGH CASK ON FEMALES AND VERY YELLOWISH COLORING ON MALES! WE NOTICE A LOT OF SIZE DIFFERENCE IN THE JACKSONS FROM OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE ISLAND! BY A HUGE MARGIN IN SIZE! IF ANY ONE CAN ANSWER I'D BE VERY HAPPY!
ALOHA
AARON GANON
HAWAIIAN3HORNS

Somebody had once hinted that there WERE indeed at least more than the one subspecies of jacksonii on the Hawaiian islands. Typically, we see C.Jacksonii xanthalopus, the largest one. However,someone on another board had said that it seemed that there were C.J.jackosonii there too(the brighter, slighty smaller one--often males have bright yellow sides, females have 3 horns), if not merumontanum(the smallest one, males have HUGE horns, females often have a single long horn.)

My guess is that there will be some interbreeding if they are all there.

WE HAVE SEEN MORE FEMALES WITH 3 HORNS ON THE KONA SIDE OF THE ISLAND. SO MORE THAN LIKELY THEY MIXED. I'LL TRY TO POST SOME PICS WHEN I CAN! I'VE ALSO HAD SOME FEMALES WITH ONE VERY LARGE HORN! THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN! OH YAH, THERE WERE MORE MAUI SIGHTINGS OF VEILEDS TODAY IN THE NEWS! THEY SAID THEY WERE ALONG SIDE THE FAMOUS JACKSONS CHAMELEON! HMMMMM....COULD THEY HAPPEN TO BREED?

>>WE HAVE SEEN MORE FEMALES WITH 3 HORNS ON THE KONA SIDE OF THE ISLAND. SO MORE THAN LIKELY THEY MIXED. I'LL TRY TO POST SOME PICS WHEN I CAN! I'VE ALSO HAD SOME FEMALES WITH ONE VERY LARGE HORN! THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN! OH YAH, THERE WERE MORE MAUI SIGHTINGS OF VEILEDS TODAY IN THE NEWS! THEY SAID THEY WERE ALONG SIDE THE FAMOUS JACKSONS CHAMELEON! HMMMMM....COULD THEY HAPPEN TO BREED?

Female C. j. xantholophus have been known to have horns (3 and 1). There has never been any evidence that anything other than C. j. xantholophus are in Hawaii. The small size of some has been noted but it is believed it is more of an effect of the genetic bottleneck than different subspecies. Even the color variations seen in Hawaii are all within the realm of variation in C. j. xantholophus.

Chamaeleo (Trioceros) jacksonii will not hybridize with Chamaeleo (Chamaeleo) capytratus. They are speciated to far away from eachother. They have totally different birthing methods (ovoviviparous and oviparous respectively).

Chris
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Chris Anderson
parsonii_hoehnelii@hotmail.com
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Hi, A subspecies is made by geografic isolation, same idea really of how a whole new species is made but over a much shorter time, basically (GE Bio trying sooooo hard to remember) if a group of the same species is isolated it will, over generations adapt to specializes in its enviromant. The creatures will still same nearly identical genetics as its predasesors but will have slight variations that make it meor adaptable to its SPECIFIC enviroment. Mabe you managed to stumble into God, ie evolution. Who knows