Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Jas]

Yes thats him, i went back for the Caudo's but he had gone, im looking forward to growing them on.

[Patrik]

yeah they will be much fun,mine arent that much bigger then yours,gilleni is suppose to be quite slow growing.
i cant wait until mine have settled in and comes out of hiding,
but until then i guess i have to play with my new tristis that also is a blast to look at,

anyway good luck with your gilleni!

[Jas]

[Patrik]

yeah i will definitively do that asap.

cheers
PATRIK

[arborgoanna]

Hybridization between monitor species here in the states has become quite common, and has resulted in hundreds of 'mutts' floating around the hobby labeled as pure species/variants. Most of these mutts look like total poop, in comparison to either of the parent species.

Nowadays, it is very difficult to find PURE V. a. acanthurus(as yellows are regularly crossed with reds), V. tristis orientalis or V. tristis tristis (as orientalis and tristis have been crossed many times), V. flavirufus and V. gouldii (both of these species were crossed for many generations, along with V. panoptes hornii). I know many people who have been searching for PURE V. flavirufus for years, only to encounter these mutts that are everywhere. Hybridization of the gouldii group was actively/purposely done by Frank Retes.

Nowadays, thanks to his efforts to create these 'mutts', us monitor keepers here in the states are faced with the "carpet python syndrome" (where it is near impossible to find pure lineages of either species due to hybridization/integration of separate species/subspecies).

Two other species which are extremely rare and high demand in the US are V. gilleni and V. caudolineatus. Instead of focusing on breeding these PURE species, FR has decided to hybridize thes two, which will almost certainly guarantee the same nightmare that is seen with ackies, tristis, and gouldii monitors over here today.

Personally, I am sick of seeing where the priorities of many people stand in the monitor hobby(at least in the US). There are people trying to cross ackies and storrs, pilbarensis and glauerti, etc...Being that monitors are not a commonly bred group of reptiles, why not focus on pure species before wanting to hybridize animals. Are the pure species not attractive enough?

Well, enough of my rant, here's a link to some photos of these caudolineatus x gilleni mutts that he has been producing.... Grrrr..

http://www.varanus.net/goannaranch/caudoleni3-20-06.jpg

[mark_w]

Bob, you're prob. preaching to the converted on here, but I have to admit, I just don't get it when it comes to the (American) obsession with hybrids either (present company excepted).

In Europe at the moment there seems to be something of a drive towards locality specific captive breeding (although prob. less true of snake breeders), which I'm a big fan of.

Of course if nobody bought this stuff, then maybe these practices would die out. But, I guess the age old problem is that if people will buy this stuff, some twerp will produce it. Plus, you only have to do it once to balls up the genetics. I think you need to move to Europe!

Cheers,
Mark.

[Patrik]

i totally agree with you guys,it is very annoying to see all this hybrids being produced, i don't really get the point of Hybridization i cant really understand why people would want to create them and definitely no why people would chose to buy them instead of the real thing,i cant see one positive thing about it even if the species in question is frequently breed in captivity.
and think if all Australian species would end up like the gouldii or flavirufus have done in the us ,that's a sad thought,
with the indo species we at least have the chance to get pure animals directly from indo,
But at least it hasn't gone so far as it has in the python world were it seem like every other breeder is creating hybrids ,even here in Europe.

[Scott W]

I have to confess that I find hybrids interesting but that doesn't mean I want to see them available or produced.

I'm not going to kid myself into thinking that keeping them pure will mean they can eventually be released back to the wild but it would still be nice to be sure of what you are buying / keeping instead of having to question the integrity of the breeder / seller.

I am glad to see that in Europe, overall most breeders try to keep to localities etc but saying that, 12 years ago when I was in San Deigo herp show it was mainly locality Blairs, mountain kings & rosy boas but now it's trying to create new hybrids with a lot of these....maybe Europe is only a few years behind?
_________________

Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk

[Nelson]

Unfortunately the problem with any "pure" Australian monitor is lack of original stock to breed from, so you'd end up with a long history of line breeding. In my mind I'd rather have a "mutt" that is healthy and has the ability to live a long happy life than a pure breed that could potentially throw up all sorts of genetic problems.

In an ideal world we wouldn't have to worry if Australia opened its borders but that's simply not going to happen.

Look at the Kennel Club for example, hundreds of breeds of dog all of which can have potentially life threatening ailments, give me a mutt any day.

What I don't agree with however is breeding completely different species as a "look at what I did" experiment.

[arborgoanna]

The big problem that I see over here, is that FR has developed such a following, that these people will believe every single thing that he preaches- there are many that would probably walk off a cliff if he told them to do so. So his words are very influential on many 'brainwashed' keepers over here; there are always people kissing up to him, and supporting him in everything he does.

I personally cannot stand his constant lies and contradictions; it seems that people are so quick to overloook all of these lies he gets tripped up on, due to his history, experiences and success with varanids. One of the recent 'stories' he had many of his 'followers' believing, was that his pet spotted turtle which had lost half of its arm had fully regrown the half which was lost!!(no photos were provided, of course)Hahaha.. limb autotomy... sure thing..

Sadly, on many of the american monitor fora, he has developed a powerful presence on the fora, and any person that has challenged his words(lies) has ended up having their threads deleted, or banned from the forum entirely. This censorship of any ideas alternative to FR's has caused many great varanid people(both breeders and field biologists) to leave the online herp community, no longer contributing their wisdom and experiences. Nowadays, there exists a definitive line running through varaniculture over here in the states, divided into the "FR folk" and the people who follow a scientific and academic approach to varanid husbandry(with more people concerned with what FR has done/what he has bred/what he tells them, than what these animals do in nature and anything about their biology or reproductive biology).

I am not sure how Europeans perceive FR, but keepers over here which come from an academic/scientific background are strongly against the claims which he makes, and the lies he preaches about his experiences and practices. His following is very reminiscent of a cult, as brought up several times in discussion on various fora(only to be deleted). There are many people who see through him, however the majority of people here are mesmorized because of his success over the past.

It's unfortunate, really.