Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I find some ambilobe female showing blue or purple in her body but some looks not much different from an ambanja female. Is it true that the one shows blue color in her body must produce more beautiful (or more blue) offsprings?

Besides, does it mean the female must be a blue bar Ambilobe? Is it possible for a red bar Ambilobe shows blue color in her body?

Hey Eddie, its Jim. Hope all is well. No one seemed to want to offer any information, so I thought I'd tell what I know. With regards to Ambilobe females, and we are well into our F-2 generations here, we have not seen anything that we could call a definite, or even probable, correlation between the color quality of the female, and resulting offspring. In our view, there are still too many similarities between females, both from the same locale, and neighboring locales, to be able to use their appearance to accurately predict the quality, and at times exact locale, of their offspring, prior to actually producing the offspring. While there may be subtle differences between females from differing locales, especially when comparing west-coast to east-coast (Madagascar) locales, it is an incredably inexact science. The best pre-determining of the expected quality of a CB female would be to know how her sibling brothers had colored up, especially with regard to the high variability of Ambilobes. With Ambanjas, the ability of a single blue-barmale to vary the amount of red and blue it displays during its life cycle is significant, such that a predominantly "blue-bar" Ambanja can become a predominantly "red-bar" Ambanja in a matter of weeks. We have observed this transformation amongst "screamer blue bars", both WC and CB, many times in the last few years, where a 75% blue bar may at times appear as a 75% red-bar, etc. Not all Ambanjas will do this, but we haven't identified any environmental component to this, and would maintain that all blue-bars are capable of significant fluctuation. Extreme red-bar Ambanjas are highly unlikely to ever increase any blue components to their color, however. best of fortune to you. Jim @ The Chameleon Company

Hi Jim, thanks for your information. My chameleons are so good. I just want to send an email to you and Ivan as one of the ambilobe blue bar females laid a small clutches (23 eggs) tonight. All the eggs look very health.
I do agree with your opinion. I have an Ambanja which showed blue before 1-year-old then it changed to almost full red bar. Does this also happen in Ambilobe? Besides, does the color of the offsprings mainly determined by that of their father?

Eddy, glad things are going well. It would be my opinion that the color quality of male offspring are as heavily influenced by the dam's lineage as that of the sire. It is one reason why CB females, where the quality of the color of their sibling brothers is documented, become so valuable to the discriminating breeder. At the same time, many breeders do not have that information, and a picture of a very colorful sire is still a good marketing tool, while not in any way guaranteeing the quality of the offspring. It was reminded to me by another reader, that Bill Love, a frequent visitor here, had commented in his REPTILE's column a while ago about the color shifts in blue-barred Ambanjas observed in the wild, and there seemed to be a seasonal component, but outside of that, no further conclusions could be drawn. As for Ambilobes, again the quality of the offspring are not always that of the sire, as outlined above. But male Ambilobes, especially the lighter blue/turquoise bars that are quite popular, do retain most of their vibrance, with very little fluctuation, throughout their life cycle. The darker, more northern varieties, that show more purple, will shift somewhat. Those eggs that you are incubating have some very colorful lineage behind them ! We have our fingers crossed for you ! Jim @ The Chameleon Company