chondro morphs? is it possible?

[RachelS.]

I was thinking about this in my sleep... yes, my sleep. I am a weird dreamer. Now I was wondering... why aren't there any chondro morphs/phases? Usually these weird variants come from inbreeding, right? And green tree pythons are a tough species to breed. So is that the possible answer? I have never once seen an albino. But it could surely be possible. Maybe it's because of the different localities... you can breed them together and have a mix, such as (for example) lereh x womena or something similar. But no morphs. What about the blue chondros? Is that a locality or a morph/color phase? Tell me your thoughts on this. I'm curious to know... and if there are such morphs out there, let's here about them. Thanks!

[ohh_kristina]

there is an albino

http://www.albinochondro.com/

which chondros? you should know the Barkers(right outside of San Antonio) sold Salecies(Albuquerque, New Mexico) some imports that produced the albino. Talk to Tracy at VPI(she responds to email, Damon probably wouldn't). Hopefully Damon will begin producing this or next breeding season but don't expect a price that wouldn't buy a house.

[RachelS.]

Alright thanks guys! Since just normal colored chondros can be more than 1K I bet the albinos are 10x's more! Very very cool looking.

probably more like 1000X expensive, I doubt they will hit the market for under $100,000 USD if I know Damon.

er 100X's

[RachelS.]

wow no kidding! What a price!! I did just email the Barkers, hoping to get an email from them soon. Thanks again!!

[Jeff_Favelle]

Usually these weird variants come from inbreeding, right?

No. They come from the wild, and are then bred to supply the market. New morphs don't magically appear after breeding related individuals together.

[Julian Garcia]

http://www.finegtps.com/GalleryAdult.htm

Here's a list of some of the proven "morphs"

I I say "_" because besides the albino, chondro genes are not as simple as say ball pythons. IE. blue x blue will not always give you blue offspring or het offspring for that matter.

[Clownfishie]

Through selective breeding, some "morphs" have been produced... these are basically just animals that have been bred for high yellow, or high white, or blue, they're not actual "morphs" in the sense that you would use that term for most other snakes (ie. recessive/co-dom/dominant genes).

There's been only one albino produced so far, by Damon Salecies ... I believe that it's just over a year old now, so it will still be a while before he's old enough to breed. Sure be interesting when it happens though!

[Double J]

Why not just leave chondros the way they are? They look fabulous naturally...so why fix it if it isn't broken? Perhaps I have no place to say this.. I am a frog breeder not a snake guy... but the philsophy in dart frog keeping is that we do not want to artificially create any morphs...we want to leave them relatively alone in terms of selective breeding...well I guess everyone unconsciously selectively breeds as when buying frogs... they pick the fattest, longest femured frog with the nicest pattern. That said.. none of the reputable breeders of darts are attempting to create new morphs. Why? Well, the idea is that we do not know how long we will be able to get these frogs out of the wild because of exporting bans...or for that matter..how much longer they will exist in the wild due to habitat loss, chytrid fungus etc etc. So, dart frog breeders want to keep the blood as pure as possible such that we can kepe these frogs the way they are in the wild. I hope that nobody takes this a personally, or as an attack on the snake hobby itself... I just want to get opinions from the other side of the fence. For that matter.. I do not really know the status of chondros in the wild... so I could be completely off base.... but anyway.. I just thought I'd post for a little food for thought...
Thanks... and I hope this leads to some interesting discusison.
Double J

[GTPman4]

G.Maxwell explains this very well in the chapter about morphs and locality debates in the Complete Chondro.

[Sonyr]

I think it's the case of "different strokes for different folks". While I enjoy locale specific type animals, for the most part, they don't really do it for me. I have had locale animals in my collection, and still have biak types.....so I am not bashing them....I just prefer designer morphs that are really unpredictable. There are plenty of breeders who like to keep their chondros bred true to their own type. I think there is a strong market for both, and there probably always will.

As far as inbreeding goes, I don't think it's that bad. I think it's overrated. When you are breeding designer animals that share the same trait you are looking for, even if they are somewhat related somewhere in their lineages, it's not a big deal. Sometimes to prove a trait, you have to do this. It just goes back to what you are looking for when it comes to purchasing or breeding you chondros.......If I am looking for high blue or high yellow lineaged baby, I wouldn't bat an eye if I knew that the parents were related.

From my understanding, Damon has the albino male paired up to a couple of females. Not sure if any female has taken, but he is actively breeding. The price of $100,000 for the male is probably right on the money.....even if a little low. He wouldn't sell it even for more money than that though. But when you think about how a true blue line or calico bloodline baby is going to cost you from about $2k-$10k, a $100k isn't that bad....is it?*lol*

Just my 2 cents...............

[RachelS.]

I agree with Double J. I think our animals should be of pure blood. I mean, after all the inbreeding and other breeding to create different color phases and such there will always be the normal/regular colored animal out there... or will there? Wouldn't you agree that they are the most beautiful?

Here's an example... Nelson's Milksnakes!! 2 years ago at a Petco (yes, a petstore, can you believe it?) my friend Simon (aka d/c on this site) and I were in the back of the store taking care of a nelsons milksnake that had RI (I used to volunteer). It seems one of the employees "found" it in a sticky trap and had no idea it was the store's so I innocently asked one of the managers if I could keep it. A few days later I went to a reptile expo to find out what type of milksnake it was. A breeder I was very fond of asked me how I could get a pure nelson's at a petstore. He was very surprised. I wondered what he meant by that and did a little research of my own, finding that most if possibly not all Nelson's milksnakes are either albino or het for albino. I hadn't seen any site selling normals that weren't hets. I also went to a few more reptile shows and noticed the same thing. I probably found, hmmm let's see, 2 maybe even 3 pure nelson's in the last 2 years. If you know anyone selling the pure bloodline, let me know... Please!

With all this breeding and producing new morphs, how do we know all the pure bloodlines are going to still be there? I believe a lot of breeders buy a lot of these wc reptiles to produce new genes more for money than their own pleasure. Take Bob Clark for example, he is a really cool guy, I mean he is totally awesome and I even told him so personally... and I'm not trying to make him look bad by saying this... But look at how he keeps most of his large constrictors... packed into tiny 6 maybe 7 foot long cages. And how often do you think he takes them out for a stretch? Of course he has to do that to save space for all his other snakes, but couldn't it be taken care of differently? And look at all the new wc snakes he buys and then breeds and sells the babies for over $600 to maybe $1000. Does he really do it because he loves the animals or for the money he earns (it could be both!)? You be the judge.

And about all this inbreeding... Did you know that the green burmese python dies at an earlier age (and I think stays smaller) than most of the other color morphs? Green burms were an accident caused by inbreeding. Some of them end up having defficiencies. But did you know that? Of course not... no breeder is going to tell you that. Barely anyone even knows.
Let's have another example... Cocker Spaniels!! Yep, that's right... dogs! From so much inbreeding to make profit and not caring about the real bloodline, even purebred cocker spaniels have ear problems, skin problems, even eye problems. Some dogs are even allergic to their own skin, simply from inbreeding... Sometimes it gets so bad they have to be put down! Is that really fair to the animal? No way! What did it do to deserve this? Nothing. It's purely because of the breeder, all they wanted was profit. Maybe they just didn't know it would come to this. Maybe they weren't smart enough to realize animals can die from something as simple as inbreeding. Did the breeder even know... or did they just not care? Again, you be the judge.

Just my thoughts...................

[Sonyr]

Rachel:

You do bring up valid points, and like I stated, different strokes for different folks. You asked if we kept inbreeding to achieve certain morphs, would there still be locale specific animals. I seem to think so. I haven't been in this hobby too long, just about 3-4 years now. But from my observations, I think that for every 1 person who likes designers, there are 5 who prefer locality pure animals.

Another point, there are plenty of chondros in the wild in their native habitats. So we can't say we're taking them all so there won't be any left. That's pretty asinyne. You can state that the green burmese have shorter lifespans and what not, but can I ask you where you got that information? I'd like to see that in writing somewhere. As far as chondros go, I've asked quite a few breeders the question about the genetic problems chondros have had in regard to inbreeding, and no one has ever even remotely mentioned anything about this. I have chondros in my collection whose lines have started in the mid 1970's..and between then and now, they have been crossed back and forth to achieve some kind of trait........ and all the ppl I have known that have any of the animals from these particular lines, I don't think anyone has had problems, including me.

Once again, I am not saying designers are better than locale animals.......It's just what I like is different than what you like.
And as far as the mentioning of people doing it for profit, I think in every hobby there are ppl who do it for the money aspect of it, and some that do it for the genuine love of it. BUT.....I don't think that the majority of ppl do it for money. Sure, some of these designers might go for alot of money. But that's only because the breeder has made a name for himself, and most of the higher end traits have taken 20-30 yrs to accomplish.