Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was wondering why there was no reference at all to the ambilobe panther in the book the panther chameleon. why is this?

maybe they weren't around much when ambilobes starting coming up. ambilobes are somewhat new to me, i was heavy into chameleons a couple years ago, i had quite a few, but something came up that forced me to sell all of them to a breeder.

anyhow, now that i am getting back into them, i was on kammerflage kreations site a couple weeks ago and saw them for the first time.

its possible the book was around before they really knew about them i guess.

its a brand new book

ambilobe is a locale specific of the panther as is abanja,noseybe and a few others probably.
so they were probably saving space
just a guess?

even if it is a brand new book, that just means it just came out, do you know the exact date they started working on it? no you dont.

it is possible that they have been working on the book and didnt find or have the room to include the ambilobe, because in my opinion it is still somewhat new.

If this line of inquiry pertains to the recent book by Gary Ferguson and James Murphy on Furcifer pardalis, the answer is that the authors spent a very short time in Madagascar many years ago and explored only a small portion of the range of this species. Many geographic locales with placenames where pardalis exist are excluded in their book. The known range of F. pardalis extends from Tamatave (Toamasina) on the east coast to the northern tip of Madagascar to the northwest coast near Ankaramy as well as a number of offshore islands. Ambilobe is within this range along with thousands of other villages, towns, and cities.

The region outside of the town of Ambilobe is lush and green and a near-perfect habit for the pardalis that were once abundant until the exporters began exploiting them for the pet trade. Wild-taken pardalis from this region are not close to an airport, consequently they are forced to endure a longer and more difficult transport to the exporters in the capital so they can be exported to Europe, Asia and the US. The longer the transport and holding time, the higher the incidence of injury, illness and death, so for every one that lives long enough to be sold to a hobbyist, as many as ten die along the way. The mortality rate for the few survivors will also be very high, approximately 90% within the first year of captivity. For those concerned for the welfare of chameleons, this should not be an acceptable price to pay, even for a color variant as attractive as this one.