Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had a few dragons from a young age through adulthood. Each one has had it's own unique developments in color. I've had a couple absolute stunners as babies that simply faded as they went to adulthood and I've had a couple drab looking babies turn into gorgeous adults. There are a few rules that seem to hold--adult color and color comparison WITHIN clutches--but for the most part it seems to be quite a toss-up. I think it's part of what keeps us guessing and makes these animals even more interesting. Here are a couple examples:

Pyro as a baby...showed a deep, intense red/orange color on his entire head and on stripes down his body:

Pyro as a sub adult...his colors have faded. He no longer has much color on his head and the rest of his body is not very vibrant. Still a very cool looking and patterned dragon, just not as colorful:

Pumpkin as a baby. She was mostly brown with orange by her ears and along the fringe of her sides.

Pumpkin as an adult. Picture says it all:

It shows, you just can't tell. I would in no way suggest buying noncolor babies "because" they will color with age. It is a total toss up or gamble.
I get a kick out of the questions from customers, the most being "what do you think it will look like as an adult?". Even as a breeder, you just can't tell.
I too have seen major change. I have seen one who started out as an average one, turn awesome, & turn average again. Go figure. I quit trying to forecast what they will look like. You can always hope though. lol

Good post Georgio.
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Joel R

Coming some day.
www.SpikesAndScales.com

Thanks Joel,

I was wondering, do you see a huge amount of variation in color development within a single clutch? Although not always true, I have been told the best looking dragons within a clutch will generally be the best looking adults. It is when you start comparing dragons from seperate clutches that you run into problems. It seems the "oldschool" sandfire dragons developed better and better color with age. The newer breed of dragons seem to have been bred to show great color as a baby but have a tendancy to become less vibrant as they get older. It only makes sense that, since the nature of the industry is selling young dragons, there would be a natural shift towards great looking young dragons. If one had a choice between baby Pyro or Baby Pumpkin I think most would choose Pyro regardless of what the parents looked like.

Peter

In my experience....the best ones early generally turn out nicely, but depending on the bloodline mixture some of the less colorful turn out the very best of all. Daisy was a plain Jane, her older sister Aspree was a looker early.....and Daisy is much more colorful than Apress as an adult though Aspree is still very nice. There were 4 in the clutch colored like Daisy....she and 2 of the others turned to be the best in the clutch of 26......the other turned out nicely like Aspree, just not screaming bright.

Just goes to show you'll never know for sure...they keep us guessing and of course colors like Red are more elusive and harder to gage yet.....but that's have the fun....watching them grow and change....you never know exactly what you're gonna end up with....hehehehe
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Tracey
Tracey's Beardies
www.beardiecrazy.com
"Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous.
It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood" ~Maya Angelou

that dragon have so nice fluor coloring of orange in her
always liked that dragon alot .
yep i know some beardies show the best color after 6 month .
it whas also the case with mellow yellow after 10 month old he whas on his best .

byeee

http://run.to/b22

I eluded to this a couple of months ago. I definitely agree that there are alot of lines out there that come out looking really nice and then don't carry those colors into adulthood. Then you have the extreme opposite with dragon lines like the ones Satyrday reptiles produce were the babies look like normals and then turn out to be ridiculous orange/reds. I think it just depends on what the buyer is looking to do with the dragon. Some people just want a bloodline, some people want a really nice looking dragon and some people want the dragons they buy turn into really nice adults.

I think that a clutch that looks all the same has very little genetic variability. The dragons from clutches that are line bred are not as easy to tell apart when compared to dragons that come from two "unrelated" bloodlines. If the clutch has several dragons that you say wow where did they come from then I really think that is a positive thing. Sundial actually commented about this in their mission statement.

-Randy
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AlphaDragonZ
www.AlphaDragonZ.com