Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here you go Jobi, and anyone else interested in seeing these. I think these are awesome little animals, and talk about diverse colors and patterns! Gotta love em!

First, here 3 of the 5 from Calamity Jane’s Clutch that hatched out on 4/20/2006

This one isn’t real colorful but has nice bars.

I love the orange shading on this one!

Would you call this a flame job? Vroom, Vroom! (fat belly too!)

Here are two from Lacy’s clutch of 4 that hatched 5/24/2006

None of the babies from the other clutches showed bright colors at this age so time will tell. Lacy was my more colorful female with lots of orange and cinnamon coloring so I am still hopeful!

Here are 4 of the 6 Stumpies. They started hatching 4/12/2006. I received them on 6/22/2006. Yep, that’s right, I didn’t breed these. I bought the whole clutch to bring in another bloodline. With the addition of these I have 3 unrelated clutches of CBs!

When they arrived their tails were all mangled and shriveled up so I had to amputate them back to healthy tissue. They are comparable in size to my 5/24/2006 clutch, considerably smaller than Calamity’s 4/20/2006 clutch that is 8 days younger than them, but they are growing fast. I am sure that they will catch up with Calamity’s babies by the time they are ready to breed! And you guessed it, I will be picking the cream from this crop!

This one is not so colorful here but still has some nice shading and patterns.

Nice shading outlining the bars on this stumpy but you still ain’t seen nothing yet!

A stumpy with faint bars and again, nice patterns, this one has sort of a flame at the nape. Now we’re seeing some color!

WOW, this one is a knockout! What color do we call this? You can see where he has shed, can’t wait until he’s all finished!

I expect to hear some feedback on the color on these leps. I am in love with these guys!

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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Marcia sorry don’t know what happened, I am sure I posted a reply to your post.
Must have posted it elsewhere let me check!
embarased big time

I am sorry for posting it in the rong place.
Link

Jobi, I started to reply to your post the other day but got busy with customers. When I got back the dang thing timed out and made me sign in again and I lost my post!

So, a few days late and, well you know the routine! Anyway, here is my reply, long and maybe boring! ; )

You asked: "do they act like capra’s? Are they as easy to care for when baby?"

My answer:
Yes, they are a lot like the capra babies but they are a little different in personality. They are a little more timid than the capra, more inclined to react defensivly. Two of the three clutches have calmed down and are pretty easy to handle but still aren't quite like the capra, they have more moxie or something than the capra. I love their spit & vinegar!

They do behave like the capra when it comes to feeding, drinking and swimming. I find they are even more inclined to lay on top of the top leaves than my capra. They don't seem to lay on top of one another like the capra but then they are smaller clutches, only 5-9 eggs as far as I am aware, so I am not sure if this has something to do with that aspect. I know that I usually find them in separate places, each on his own leaf for instance. In the clutch of stumpies I do occasionally see 2 on one leaf but that isn't the norm.

They are smaller then the capra but are vigorous feeders/hunters so are very easy to raise. As described in the post about the heat, I am keeping a little heat on one end for these guys and I do find them using it, not all of the time, but they do use it. They take readily to the water, eat any feeders I offer that are appropriate size. They seem to favor silkworms and roaches over mealworms, and of course I am sure they are more easily digested.

The only losses I had were the 2 eggs that were left in the viv to incubate in the natural conditions. They took 196 days and the babies were very weak and never made it out of the shell. These eggs were overlooked when I dug up the clutch and weren't found until 4 months later. The other loss was one of the stumpies. He was very tiny when he arrived and he just didn't keep up with the others and didn't take to the change from crickets to silkworms.

As for the colorations, I want everyone to realize that there was no selective breeding here, just chance! I had 4 dragons, Calamity was bred when I got her so we don’t know what the father looked like. It could have been Wild billy but he is only a slight chance. Wild billy is a barred over green. He is my only green lep. Calamity is a very plain Jane lep with tan background and crisp dark bars. She produced that awesome flame baby. Of course, only time will tell if the colors stay true!

Lacy was marked very much like Calamity and Billy but she had cinnamon and orange splotching over the tan background, reason for me to hope that these colors do maintain into adulthood. She could have been bred by either Occifer or Billy, only males she was with! Occifer is a gray without bars. He has some pretty cool coloring but is hard to describe.

I don’t know what the stumpies parents looked like. I didn’t breed them. I love the red-cinnamon one. If it is a female I will be keeping it! I am also hoping one of the orange-flames is a female as I will keep one of them as well!

Here are photos of the parents just to show how diverse the colors and patterns can be even in the WC generation. With this diversity we are bound to see a great diversity in the CB offspring!

Calamity Jane

Wild Billy

Lacy

Occifer

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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Thanks Marcia
Yes I have noticed there shyness too! I really hope that we can produce cb that are not as shy, otherwise this specie will remain a low priority in herpetoculture, I know this is silly, but peoples whant lizards they can handle (remember my turned down gono)

I saw about 200 of these little dragons, they are quit polymorphic! Some are very nice.
I noticed they are better hunters then capra’s, for instance capra’s often loose track of prey when it stops moving, these guys stay focused and grab the none moving prey, this subtle deference is a major evolutionary achievement. In time we may discover they have better sensory or olfactory organs or simply better view?

Thanks for sharing, I love it when keepers take time to observe there animals and share what they see.
Rgds

That is one of the things that I am looking forward to seeing in these clutches is how they handle as adults. So far, as babies they are pretty nice. They may take a bit to catch, but no more than my baby leopard geckos did back when I was breeding them. However, once you have them in hand they are pretty tolerant, like the capras. Definitely more so than the adults!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Mine always try to bite if handled, or at least open mouth.
When they see my hand coming inn for them, I am greeted with all kinds of threat displays.
This is why I am curious about your cb babies.

Two of my three also put up this fuss and bite and hiss at me. The third, the gray one, is very tame and gentle. The female that I lost was also pretty calm. She was difficult to catch but she never bit or hissed, she only ran and hid. The gray male doesn't even do that. He just sits and allows me to pick him up.

So, I think there are distinct personality differences. I see these same differences in my armata group. This makes me think that there is the possibility that the cb animals could be more calm through being subjected to handling early on and thus growing more acclamated to it. Of course this is what we will find out with the clutches that I currently have and any future one we produce.

I will point out here that there is also the occasional capra who is just as mean as these feisty little animals. I have had both male and female individuals who could not be picked up and held without the hissing and biting. It seems that their bite is not as painful as that as the armata or lep but non-the-less not something that a biginner or young keeper would like to deal with. ; )
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html