Since this is a forum for genetics in tree boas I would like the time to talk about the genetics of the tiger amazons. The first tiger amazon ever found was and still is owned by Danny Mendez of Urban Jungles. She is a lovely adult garden phase tiger animal and is definately one of the most beautiful of the small bunch for sure. She produced a litter in 99 I believe and there were two tigers in that one. This is a co-dominant trait which means that when a tiger is bred to a 'normal' amazon approximately 50% of the babies are tigers. Out of the two that were born one was a garden phase and one was a yellow phase tiger. I was lucky enough to be able to aquire the yellow phase animal about two years ago, when I finally got around to sexing the animal it turned out to be a male, and he is still here today at Ghi Reptiles where he is hopefully going to live out a long reproductive life. The tiger trait consists of striping that runs from head to tail and is visible on the dorsal, sides, and even present on the bottom of the animal, much like the tiger retics. Urban Jungles (owned by Danny Mendez) produced another litter of Tigers this last year and I was again lucky enough to aquire a female this time. There has not yet been a tiger to tiger breeding and I hope sometime in the future this will happen so we can see if there is a 'super' version of the Tiger. Or is the current Tiger already the 'super' version.
One of my current breeding projects consists of my male Tiger and a red calico female. My goal here is to see if I can produce a red tiger. I know that color is very variable in amazons but a yellow male was bred to the original garden tiger and garden and yellow tigers were produced so maybe there is a red gene there somewhere that can be passed on. Feel free to post any questions you have about the tiger genetics or breeding projects and hopefully either Danny or myself can answer them for you. Here are a couple of pictures of one of my current breeding projects.
