WANTED: Female Blue Tegu

[DaveDragon]

Well I hate to say it... but you'd have at least one sale... me. Ugh the shame...

Another convert!!!

 

[techhousejunkie]

wait quick question what is the "teardrop" your talking about?? Ive never handled or kept a blue so bear with me.

 

[DaveDragon]

wait quick question what is the "teardrop" your talking about?? Ive never handled or kept a blue so bear with me.

It is a black mark under their eye that looks like a teardrop.

 

[techhousejunkie]

thank you

 

[DanRC30]

I'm more impressed with the personality than the looks to be honest. He is so mellow and friendly. He seems to know me more than anyone too. When I first got him, he was afraid and would open his mouth when I picked him up and struggle to get away. It only took about 3 days of handling him for 10min each day to calm him down to the point where he is now. He quickly learned that I'm a "pretty cool guy" because I hold him nicely and more importantly, I bring him food! When he looks at me, you can see he understands things. He even turns his head when I call him! I think his intelligence and disposition is the best thing about him... I assume it's inherent in Blues.

 

[Swtbrat]

DanRC30

He even turns his head when I call him! I think his intelligence and disposition is the best thing about him... I assume it's inherent in Blues.

As far as I know they are all intelligent and no color would be smarter than another and all can have a great disposition.
My Chacoan can beat up your blue.

Brat!

 

[DanRC30]

Brat, I didn't say intelligence and behavior was "EXCLUSIVE" to Blue's... lol!

But I think it's safe to say that it's somewhat not common in Gold's...

 

[Swtbrat]

Oh most definitely,Golds do seem to have a reputation for being harder to tame.

where oh where is a high white blue female tegu :?:

Brat!

 

[DaveDragon]

I think his intelligence and disposition is the best thing about him... I assume it's inherent in Blues.

I think all Tegu's are fairly intelligent. The dispositions can vary, just like people.

Our female Blue hasn't warmed up to me after 6 months. She's not aggressive but doesn't want to be bothered. I only take her out about once a week but I talk to her every day. She responds with stressed looking deep breaths.

We've had our male Blue only 2 months and it seems like he's finally accepted me after being very cage & food aggressive. 2 or 3 weeks ago he suddenly changed and hasn't been aggressive since, even friendly.

Their disposition could be a combination of their personality and how they were raised. None will be the same.

It sounds like you've got a keeper!!! If I was you I wouldn't sell him. Hold out for a female or just enjoy him as he is.

 

[DanRC30]

Brat,
Dave has a female that could be a nice mate for my male but he won't let me buy her... :-( I'm willing to make him a deal he can't refuse, but he's not interested in any price... :-(

 

[DaveDragon]

Brat,
Dave has a female that could be a nice mate for my male but he won't let me buy her... :-( I'm willing to make him a deal he can't refuse, but he's not interested in any price... :-(

I'm allergic to cement shoes! :mrgreen:

What's your proposition?? Maybe I could convince the wife. It's a long shot, but you never know!

 

[DanRC30]

If you're open to it Dave, let's discuss on the phone this evening... PM me your number and I'll give you a call...

 

[Swtbrat]

That could be a cool deal Dave,you can probably get the pick of that clutch and have a brand new baby to raise.

If you recall Dan I suggested this when you first got that blue male and you said no. :wink:

Brat!

 

[DanRC30]

HAHAHA!!! I probably did Brat, but a lot has changed in the past few months. If you noticed, I disappeard for a little bit... I had some extremely unfortunate circumstances in the past few months... nothing I really want to get into publicly... anyway, now I'm working on recovering and this is a project that will help me get underway... Dave will understand if/when we speak...

Don't worry Brat, you'll be well taken care of if the deal goes through and I produce some babies... :-D

 

[COWHER]

What's wrong with the underbite? Is that not normal for an adult Blue?

Thanks Dave. To me, his jaw is just normal for a Tegu of his size. Am I wrong here?

The Blue teguÃ?Æ?Ã?â??Ã?â??Ã?¢Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¡Ã?â??Ã?¬Ã?Æ?Ã?¢Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?¾Ã?â??Ã?¢s origin is scientifically unknown, however thought to be (Tupinambis merianae) by many, including myself. This would be a different local, or subspecies of the Tupinambis merianae. It is said that they can be found in Brazil, and Colombia, however there has been photos taken of them in La Pampa, as well as French Guiana. This would be an area many miles apart and would suggest a very large range. Some of the common names for the Blues are Blue Tegu, Powder Blue Tegu, Blue Albino Tegu, Albino Tegu, and Snow Tegu.

I do not agree with albinism in reptiles that require ultraviolet lighting, in my opinion this is nothing but the creation of a very cruel morph. Albinism is well known for being less tolerant to bright lights, it is torturing these animals to keep them alive. I do not have a problem with nocturnal animals, such as geckos, and snakes with the albino traits due to them lacking the need for lighting.

The Blue tegus that are available in the pet trade are not animals that I desire as a breeder, or promote as pets. They are very inbred, due to the very small gene pool that was first imported into the United States. The original animals were said to be a very small number of six hatchlings. These were imported as Tupinambis teguixin, but were found by the importer to be unlike the normal Tupinambis teguixin they were received before. This makes these animals very prone to undesirable traits, thus the albinism, toes that do not bend, over bites and under bites, also blindness has been found to be very present in these animals. For a few years now there has been very light colored albino blue tegus sold as snow tegus. The snows do not exist in this species, but rather a very light albino. There has never been any Melanistic tegus to produce this morph, it has been found when breeding these false snows that they produce albinos, rather then snows. There have never been any other Blue tegus imported into the United States except these very few; this is something to keep in mind when choosing your animal.

so it turn, yeah i guess it is becoming more "normal" for blue tegus to have those traits due, unfortunately, to severe inbreeding and there for deformities.

 

[DanRC30]

Inbreeding also affects the animals mentally. So, unless there are mental issues being reported, I doubt that the level of inbreeding is very high. Many reptiles can safely tolerate a moderate level of inbreeding. It's very common in the wild and it's very common when breeding different morphs.

My personal belief: There were more than 6 brought into the country... I mean, come on. Someone else must have brought more in and just never said anything. It happens all the time. And there is no way to know FOR SURE if more were or weren't brought in. I actually think mine was a WC baby and raised here. I could be wrong and I'll never know for sure, but I don't see any defects in him or his personality.

As far as the underbite is concerned, I don't think that the slight underbite he has is from inbreeding. It looks like a natural trait to me and probably is more exclusive to large males. So many large lizards have that as part of their design. I've seen pics of Croc Monitors, Savanna Monitors, and especially Tree Monitors, as well as other Tegus, with different levels of underbites in the wild. And males tend to have more robust faces when compared to females. So assuming anything, is nothing more than speculation. One good and solid way to find out how high the inbreeding has gone, aside from a DNA test, is to breed consistantly and see if mental issues develop. Heads twitching, leaning, balance issues, and major birth defects will show up from inbreeding.

I'm not a herpetologist, but I do know a little bit about the results of inbreeding... not first hand of course! LOL! But I do have a BA in Anthropolgy... I did study it a bit and I know all about genetic diversity.

 

[COWHER]

i think you should talk to Bobby aka varnyard he has the first hand knowledge of this situation. but as for the original 6 that were imported i have heard from more than one reputable source on that exact matter and there is no denying those 6 were all that was ever brought from South America. sorry not trashing on you tegu of blues for that matter i love them i just don't agree with the inbreeding

 

[DanRC30]

I'm not saying that when the people you know who brought them in only brought 6 in, I'm saying how does anyone know that, let's say, the businessman down the street from me didn't go and import 300 blues completely on his own? There are so many unique animals out there in this country that are kept in private collections that are not among public knowledge. I know of ball morphs that have never even been seen by anyone other than their owners! This happens a lot more than you think... I can't give other spedifics, but there are some very special animals in collections out there that were imported very quietly. So there's no way for sure to say that none were ever imported unless you had 24 hour border control on both the South America Side and the US side that was 100% effective. And even then they could slip by. How do you think they get illegal drugs into the country? See my point?

 

[COWHER]

i do see your point. but why do blue tegus look so different than other blue tegus? ie the overbite or under bite? they don't look like that in the wild so why do some of the ones in captivity look like that? I recently found someone around me who has two blues and has bred them out of the 3 clutches they had 50 % of them were still born they also have 2 black and whites and bred them as well with no deaths. From what i see the inbreeding of these guys does affect them in a bad way.

 

[DanRC30]

There can be so many reasons for stillborn offspring. Why does one woman miscarry and another doesn't? There's no inbreeding going on... it's just how that person's body is made up. Some people can't have children. That's just how it is sometimes. Maybe Blue's are significantly different enough from B&W's that it's common that many don't survive. Maybe it's only that one pair that has the trouble. Maybe they need a different nutrient in their diet. Are you sure there's no evidence of an underbite in the wild? There aren't many pics out there of wild Blues... at least I haven't found many.

Basing an entire population on one persons results isn't an accurate way to conduct a study. You need to do a complete study using random sample groups and then you can extroplate from those results. I learned all about this while studying for my other degree: mechanical engineering. lol! It's not really a difficult concept to understand, but it's difficult to explain in a chat forum. ALso, the study would take YEARS since it would involve many different breedings.

Here's a good example of strange trouble with breedings. Breeders have bred almost every single species of snake in captivity successfully, right? Well, for some reason, breeders are having very limited success breeding Boelens Pythons and having the babies survive. There are a few that are doing it, but its rare for some reason. Nobody knows why for sure yet. They come from Indo, and so many species are from Indo that have been bred with no problem. So why the trouble with that species?

Basically, I feel it's too early to tell FOR SURE what's going on. Eventually, time will tell...