Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was thinking about all the different color morphs that people are breeding, and i was also thinking how everyone seems to be very concerned with respecting the animal for how amazing a creature it is. So with those thoughts in mind, it seems that we are almost reversing evolution by breeding all these different colored animals. The colors that would cause a dragon to be easily spotted, killed and eaten in the wild are what we're trying to indentify and reproduce (I know there probably arent many predators that would threaten the BDs in someone's home). Now its unnatural for a lizard to live in someone's home for its life to begin with, and it seems we are distancing ourselves from nature even more by breeding so many different color morphs. i own 3 beardeds myself, so it sounds a little hipocritical, but it is something that i was just thinking about. Theres a reason you will mostly find "normal" phased dragons in the wild, evolution in that way is pretty awesome. So im here to represent the Normal Dragons, and give them the respect they deserve. If anyone else has any thoughts about this id love to hear it.

Interesting thoughts....however there are naturally occuring red morph (sandfire I beleive) in the wild....where the Australian sands are more red than tan...it is from wild caught specimens of this hue that helped spawn various colour morphs. I am not 100% sure on the facts but from my reading I recall mention of bearded dragons coming in a reddish color.

Captivity has such different selection pressures than the wild does that just by breeding them we are changing the genotype from what a wild population would have. Not to mention that our gene pool here in the US is pretty small. So we're pretty much screwed to begin with, I guess is what I'm saying. Imagine if bearded dragons had real morphs (ie recessive traits that disrupt a color or pattern) like some snakes do. You should see the arguements that go on over those.

n/p