What happens when you breed chameleon siblings not saying im going to do it

[Carterl]

Would seems wrong to me. But im just courious because some people do it with snakes to keep the morph in the blood line i was wondering if thats the same with chams.

 

[jaredg87]

its the same thing as human inbreeding, all living species have dominant and recessive genes in there DNA. What inbreeding does is increase the chance of a a negative allele being present in the offspring.
say you have a female that is a carrier of a specific disease like females carry color blindness but don't show it. It then has a higher chance of that disease or deformity being passed on to future generations and being dominant in some of the offspring.
It happen to the Royal family the Romanovs in History and is a perfect example of why interbreeding is a bad idea
http://www.ualberta.ca/~pletendr/tm-modules/genetics/images/hemophilia.jpg

Here is a link to the family tree with hemophilia being present in one female and all the inbreeding cause it to spread to MANY other offspring.

Hope this helps

 

[tenchijin]

In very, very few cases will there be any problems. It is a concern when you have several generation propagation, each breeding with its siblings.

 

[pssh]

I've heard that when chameleon are inbred like that (or at least panthers anyways) the eggs don't hatch or the babies die very soon after hatching. I don't have any person experience with it though, so I don't know if this happens every time or if it only happens some times.

 

[Olimpia]

Yea, big breeders were saying that every single time they have had any inbreeding (accidental or otherwise) that either all or most of the offspring were not viable. They seemed to think WC or CB parents made no difference, but I'm not sure how much I remember. It was a curious observation, that's for certain.

At any rate, all species are better off breeding with unrelated individuals. Line breeding is how you get incredible patterns and colors, true, but it's also how you end up with head wobbles and deformities in reptiles.

 

[ijmccollum]

Even with line breeding, they use cross backs. Still, a lot goes to the wayside before a viable line is established.

 

[lisagr07]

what's line breeding?????

 

[Olimpia]

what's line breeding?????

Linebreeding is breeding animals of the same family line together to "cement" a certain trait, to increase the chances of having it come up again in offspring. Typically, it involves breeding together animals that are not immediate relatives (like grandparents x grandchildren, or uncle x niece) but I know people will do parents x offspring as well. Essentially, it's a type of inbreeding.

 

[sandrachameleon]

Would seems wrong to me. But im just courious because some people do it with snakes to keep the morph in the blood line i was wondering if thats the same with chams.

Most reputable breeders seem to agree that inbreeding is problematic for chameleons, far more so than with many other reptiles.

If you inbreed, recessive traits that are not beneficial will have a much higher chance of appearing in the offspring. In addition to this you are essentially decreasing the genetic diversity by not allowing mixes for other prominent and beneficial genes to mix in. Typical negative results are eggs that do not hatch, and those that do are weak animals with a host of permanent issues, including a shorter life.

Since there is little benefit and significant risk, it seems a impractical (and perhaps stupid) thing to do IMHO.

This sort of discussion has occured many times on the forum.
Here are a couple links to older threads essentially on the same topic in which there are some interesting posts:
Is this true?
Intelligent discussion about line / in-breeding
Wouldn't this mean they are inbred??
Chameleon Genetics-- How much does each parent contribute?

 

[lisagr07]

Linebreeding is breeding animals of the same family line together to "cement" a certain trait, to increase the chances of having it come up again in offspring. Typically, it involves breeding together animals that are not immediate relatives (like grandparents x grandchildren, or uncle x niece) but I know people will do parents x offspring as well. Essentially, it's a type of inbreeding.

thanks Olimpia,,, i agree, inbreeding it is!!!