WIBLIT Morph What's The Deal?

[witblits]

Hey guys.

Here is a recent pic of three sub adult females soaking up the autumn sun.

The thing is alot of what is being said on forums and so on are complete nonsense. I have no idea where the thought that these ain't vitticeps come from. We don't even have the other pogona species in SA! I can trace back the witblits dragons to six generations. Purely vitticeps! And I strongly doubt that if there was soething further back that it would have such a huge influence now.
Also they are smaller than 'normal' dragons. But we have selected for smaller dragons. Even the genration above the witblits is fairly small.
So there you go. Hopefully it clears a few things up.
You might be sieng a bit more of them in the future (there might be some at Hamm), and I'm sure then you wil get to like them. They are realy realy beautiful. And as I have said before. I'm not in it for the money, but hey how nice it is to make money from something you love.
Cheers

 

[Red Ink AUS]

Firstly welcome mate,

The morphology as they have grown older seems to be displaying P.vitticeps characteristics now. Interesting looking specimens.

Do you have pics of the lineage of dragons used that you can post?
Are you intending on holding back some for breeding to check if the abnormality is genetically inheritable and not possibly an incubation quirk? (these are the first right? they have not been bred to check if it's genetic?)

 

[crypticdragons]

Firstly welcome mate,

The morphology as they have grown older seems to be displaying P.vitticeps characteristics now. Interesting looking specimens.

Do you have pics of the lineage of dragons used that you can post?
Are you intending on holding back some for breeding to check if the abnormality is genetically inheritable and not possibly an incubation quirk? (these are the first right? they have not been bred to check if it's genetic?)

From what I have seen this person post in the past they have not proved the gene out yet but does plan to breed siblings to see what the gene does.

I will keep my mouth shut on my personal opinions of this person and their breeding practices as I do not want to argue with anyone especially not on this forum. With that said this will be my last post on this thread period

 

[witblits]

No the morph is not proven yet. We will do some breedings this coming season. We should have some good answers in okt or around there. Unfortunately we will have to do some inbreeding. I am pretty sure that this would not affect the offspring. Most animals can cope with a large degree of inbreeding. In fact that is how many morphs are created. other species like our sungazers (Cordylus giganteus) are colony animals and the 'fittest' male breeds with the females. His offspring will most likely be strong and then in turn those young males again mate with their sisters and mothers. This is inbreeding. It positively affects them. So after one 'inbreeding' I am sure there should not be a problem. We can only learn from it. I will keep you updated.

 

[Red Ink AUS]

Cheers, mate let us know how you go, Oh, by the way I'm not trying to have a go here or anything but there are natural patternless dragons here in OZ (mainly in the deep deep reds). It would be interesting so see your results with the breeding.

 

[witblits]

post some pics of these 'natural' patternless dragons please. as they say: "seing is believing". i have never heard of them and alot of the breeders i work with also haven't. so it would be interesting if they do exist!

 

[ladyknite]

Now, correct me if I'm wrong. But science does have an upper hand here.

I realize that inbreeding animals is somewhat common practice, and actually considered ok with some people........but explain to me exactly how, when, why and where inbreeding isn't really a problem.

In some aspect I admire what you're trying to explore, the genetics and morphology of it all, but in another way it appears to be the same old tired excuse of what makes it right. You are right, it is great to do something you love. It's also great to love what you do. It's important to make a difference, and stick your neck out. To meet challenges that noone else has met in a decade. Can you do that? Or will you become one of the many faces that fade out in the crowd?

 

[witblits]

I will (because I have to) inbreed them in order to figure out the genetics behind them. It is the only way. From there on we will outcross them with coloured morphs, hopefully some leusictics, leatherbacks etc to see what we get. This should reveal some interesting results ( I suspect it would not be long before we have leatherback witblits) and at the same time it will create some 'hybrid vigour'. I am going to avoid crossing these with translucents as I think this would cause some serious skin defects. This is my opinion only and I am sure someone will eventualy do it and the results may hopefully prove me wrong.

 

[Red Ink AUS]

post some pics of these 'natural' patternless dragons please. as they say: "seing is believing". i have never heard of them and alot of the breeders i work with also haven't. so it would be interesting if they do exist!

As I do not own the photos they are from an add for sale I will merely give you the link. They are actually quite common here. They come from the locality of the dragons come from the top end of South Australia. The have been listed as sold so I don't expect them to be pics to be on for longer.

http://www.herpshop.com.au/

Add no 012-049 in the lizard section just foloow the links on the top to see the pics

 

[witblits]

Yeal looks like the listing is already removed mate.

 

[Red Ink AUS]

Yeal looks like the listing is already removed mate.

Just checked bud still there, go to the lizard section. "Red phase Central bearded dragon stunning red female yearling"

 

[witblits]

Oh found it. Thanks. It is "012-409" and not 012-049.
The thing is those are not quite similar to our witblits... 1) they are red, witblits are not. 2) they do have pattern, our dragons don't.
Look those are great looking dragons, but we are talking about different things here.
Thanks for the link though. Did not know that red dragons like that do occur in the wild. Or are the captive bred (selected)?

 

[beardielover17]

I will (because I have to) inbreed them in order to figure out the genetics behind them. It is the only way. From there on we will outcross them with coloured morphs, hopefully some leusictics, leatherbacks etc to see what we get. This should reveal some interesting results ( I suspect it would not be long before we have leatherback witblits) and at the same time it will create some 'hybrid vigour'. I am going to avoid crossing these with translucents as I think this would cause some serious skin defects. This is my opinion only and I am sure someone will eventualy do it and the results may hopefully prove me wrong.

I may be wrong here but wouldn't you be able to achieve the same thing by breeding 2 wiblits to 2 unrelated but "normal" dragons to produce possible hets and then breeding the hets together?

 

[Red Ink AUS]

Oh found it. Thanks. It is "012-409" and not 012-049.
The thing is those are not quite similar to our witblits... 1) they are red, witblits are not. 2) they do have pattern, our dragons don't.
Look those are great looking dragons, but we are talking about different things here.
Thanks for the link though. Did not know that red dragons like that do occur in the wild. Or are the captive bred (selected)?

They occur naturally within wild populations as well as being bred. Basically we do not have the "morph' mentality here in OZ. It's not the fancier the colour the higher the price here. It's more a case of the best colour representation of a locality pure colour. I.e. the highest price for the best natural red coming out of South Australia.

I was trying to illustrate the the "patternless" morph is actually naturally occuring as well as i have personally seen examples of it. The reds in the ad have a severely reduced pattern so it would not take too much selective breeding (not line breeding) to produce a patternless red. We also have patternless whites that come out of the Simpson Desert (though a bit more rare). They are pure white with the only "natural" pattern being the barring on the end of the tail. There are also known patternless yellows, oranges.

 

[Red Ink AUS]

I understand that you are planning to "line breed" them. Are you also considering repeating the mating that produced the patternless offsprings to see if the results are repeated?

What percentage of the original clutch was patternless vs normal hatchlings? Was the pairing that produced the patternless clutch paired before and how many times? Did the female only lay one clutch in the season that produced the patternless hatchlings or where there multiple clutches with patternless offsprings?

I would also suggest rather than siblings i would instead breed male patternless to the mother, females to the father. A better way of "line breeding" to check genetic traits. This will also create more "stable" hets at 66% if the trait is genetic to breed from next season.