Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am fairly new to chucks, as most of you know. I have 4 and just adore them. But I have been under the wrong assumptions as to the various (not varius! ) species. I was told that my hybrid is a cross between Hispidus and Varius. When I looked at the pics of adults, I assumed that Varius refers to granites! So granites are a color morph of Ater or common chuck??? What are Piebald chucks??

Does this mean that my hybrid is going to be a gigantic chuck?

Donna,
The granites are a locality/color phase of S. ater.
S. Varius is the San Esteban island chuck, or piebald chuck.
S. Hispidus is the Angel island or spiny chuck.
Calico chucks are varius X hispidus hybrids. Since both varius and hispidus get big, your little hybrid should as well. It will likely exceed 20 inches in lenght, eventually. Varius can get slightly larger than hispidus, and I think the maximum length is somewhere around 27 inches.
I hope this helps clear things up.
Nick

So I need to rethink breeding that hybrid with Hota! I guess I should get a male hybrid?

That is what we would do, but we clearly have a chuck problem. There was a guy selling babies somewhat recently, maybe he still has some. See what a slippery slope you are on? One chuck leads to another....
P.S. How are the collareds doing?

Take Care.
Nick & Austin

Chucks like Potato chips? LOL! He is who I got the hybrid from. But I need more female granites, now!

The collareds are doing great! I put one of the WT females in with my Baileyi pair, and the other two in with studly boy (or at least he thinks so!) Sonoran dude. So far, only one of the fancy females ovulated and is gravid

Is a calico a hybrid?

I think some of the common names can be confusing.
Callico seems to describe pure varius better than piebald does. At least when you think of piebald as pattern interupted by white pigment, like the ball pythons.
It makes it a bit more complicated with ater, because they come in many different colors. It seems like every mountain range has a slightly different look to them. Common names that include locality are a lot more helpful.

It does often get confusing. I don't have all of the scientific names memorized so 99% of the time I use their common names.