Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi again everyone, just thought I'd let you know that Trevor the male chuckwalla I mentioned in my last post has just arrived about an hour ago. He's a lovely looking chuck, his markings are a nice yellow sort of colour. He looks like a san easterban chuck but he has the tail of a red back, can any one please tell me what type he is? and also what type is the female (Mayble) I think she must be a common chuck but some confirmation would be good. I'm wondering if trevor could be crossed with a san easterban as during my reasearch I read that some san easterban chucks were introduced to the main land or something, so that made me think he could be crossed, any way I look forward to hearing what you think lol. There getting along great so far any way almost like long lost friends lol.
The last pic is their very first sight of each other within a minute or two of opening the box, then they started head bobbing lol. And the first two pics were taken in the following 15 mins, hope you like them.

Thanks
Martin

Martin,
Your male is likely from Nevada. Did you buy him from a large reptile distributor? The annual supply of wild caught Nevada chucks has begun. I have already seen them advertised in the classifieds.
San Esteban chucks are quite large, and a hybrid would likely be larger than a normal common chuck. There is one known hybrid swarm between San Esteban chucks, Angel Island chucks, and common chucks. This population is on Alcatraz island (I believe), off the coast of Sonora Mexico. It is thought that the native indians introduced the larger species of chucks to the island because they eat chuckwallas, and obviously, there is more meat on the bigger ones. Mexico does not export their reptiles, commercially. It would be very unlikely to find a hybrid from this population in the hobby.

He looks good, though. Sounds like he is nice and active.

Take Care.
Nick

Hi Nick, I got him from a private owner, she said he was a long term captive and I think he's about 5 ish, and my famale was also from a private owner also a long term captive, she's also about 5 years old. I think what you mentioned about the indians introducing easterban chucks was what I must have read, it's one of those things though were you read something and only remember the jist of it lol. Trevor does seem pretty large, I'm sure he's larger than the other male i saw when I collected Mable, he's a good adult male bearded dragon size (I used to have a Dragon so I can compare lol) don't no if that is the normal size for a male chuck? I'll try to measure him one day I don't want to stress him at the moment though or the female for that matter, because as mentioned they are both wild caught and a bit nervous of me. I mentioned in another post that I put there viv on the floor so that I could open the door and let them run around and hopefully they will learn to trust me that way, picking them up is the last thing I want to do at the moment, if they were captive bred then I most likely would pick them up to tame them as that is what I did with my B Dragon to tame him. Any way sorry for wandering off there lol, I also heard that they had capped importation of wild chuckwallas now, but by what you said it seems they are still doing it, do you know if they are planning on capping it?
Cheers
Martin

Sounds like the male is prety normal sized. Most of the wild caught chucks come from Nevada. California and Arizona only allow private collectors to take small numbers, Utah doesn't allow collection, and Mexico doesn't export.
I know that the chucks are still being collected in Nevada, and being sold in the U.S. I haven't heard anything about the U.K. They might have stopped importing them.

Nick

Cheers for that Nick, It's nice to know where these two most likely come from. I think if they haven't alrady capped it they most likely will do at some point, so I guess when they do they'll go up in value. I just hope more people over here start breeding them so we have a good captive population.

Thanks again
Martin