nourthren out of australia stock

[supersnakeman101]

this is just one of my personal Q but eventually because it is illegal to export form Australia would the CB population eventually all be closely related and you would have an increase in genetic disorders

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

Yes, it is illegal.

[Alioop]

I'm not 100% certain on this... but I believe the Northern gene pool is still pretty large that its not too much of a concern at this point. This is definitely an issue with Easterns however, as they became less popular pets when IJs and other Indonesian species started to be imported. Now there are only a few people breeding Easterns, and those are basically all from the same stock. As a result, we've basically lost the eyebands that your classic Eastern would posses. (Until Jeff saved us all with his gorgeous imports from Europe!)

I *think* that what I just stated here is accurate but I'm sure someone will correct me if I made a mistake somewhere.

[supersnakeman101]

ok just woundering

[Linnea]

It is very common for all animals these days to be quite inbred, and people joke a lot about reptiles from USA on conventions here, in particular ballpythons, being very inbred. in truth most reptiles these days that have no new supply of wild genes end up like this, no matter where they are from. northerns and many other reptiles are still being illegally transported in large amounts, so we still do not have a large problem, i think.

what the problem usually is about, is that people wanna breed their animals without having much knowledge about the breeding itself. plenty buy cool animals and say that they wanna breed them, even if they are siblings, without knowing that the result will be bad if this continuously happens. they may also knowlingly breed sibling animals of a rare kind to get money. some buy very inbred animals, then buy another inbred animal, that are not related at all but are so genetically infunctionable that the offspring may have serious issues that we do not see until its too late.

not to mention dogs. did you know the average lifespan of a dog used to be past 20 a few hundred years ago? (if you trust old, written records that is)

though you must also take into consideration that animal populations on smaller islands have a very small gene pool and indeed are what we would call inbred, but they still manage well. the same can be observed on humans that live on smaller islands, marrying cousins here and there without too horrifying results(in some cases).

chinchillas and the shar pei dog are good examples of where around 4 animals have managed to repopulate the pet industry - of course the species paid their price for this.

*i expect i once more expressed myself in a very un-english way/chose the wrong words, ignore my mistakes please.....i havent slept properly the past 2 weeks.

[Jeff]

There are currently enough unrelated northerns in the U.S. to produce healthy offspring for many many years, IF they are bred responsibly. Each adult animal can breed for 15-20 years at least, and the offspring of one pair of unrelated adults will be no more inbred today than the babies produced by that same pair was 20 years ago. By making sure to produce and keep unrelated breeders to replace the first pair when they get too old to breed, it will be possible to continue producing animals that are not inbred for a long time.

Unfortunately, VERY few people are willing to put in the extra effort to first obtain animals with know origins, and then keep the detailed records necessary to keep the distinct, known bloodlines separate in their breeders. There is no monetary advantage to doing so, so it is simply too much trouble for most people to worry about.

That is why it is so important for people who want to breed bts to fully understand the situation before they just start throwing random animals together. That is also why the efforts of the few people who are truly concerned about the long-term health of the captive bts outside of Australia have been, and still are so important. Thanks to the efforts of a few over the last 30 years, we still have a number of unrelated bloodlines to work with. The percentage of northerns in the U.S. that are the offspring of unrelated parents is probably getting smaller all the time though.

Alie, you're funny! I would resist calling any form of eastern "classic" though. There are probably just as many wild easterns in Australia without eyebands, as there are with eyebands. We just didn't have any here in the U.S. with eyebands. Hopefully, in a few years they will be pretty common again.

[Red Ink AUS]

Any animal that comes from a "line breeding" is in bred as that's what line breeding is.

From a grand scale... the gene pool is probably quite big.
From the breeder you got the animal from, probably not.

[Jeff]

Any animal that comes from a "line breeding" is in bred as that's what line breeding is.

From a grand scale... the gene pool is probably quite big.
From the breeder you got the animal from, probably not.

Line breeding is really not the problem. The reason to line breed is if you have an animal with an unusual trait that you want to recreate or intensify. Those animals usually bring a higher price, and are purchased by people who should understand the genetics of what they are buying.

We have a limited gene pool here that is not very likely to expand. What is irresponsible is when people carelessly "line breed" perfectly normal animals. There is no reason to inbreed normal animals. It is just laziness. I have not met many people who line breed BTS that aren't responsible about their projects.

[Red Ink AUS]

Any animal that comes from a "line breeding" is in bred as that's what line breeding is.

From a grand scale... the gene pool is probably quite big.
From the breeder you got the animal from, probably not.

Line breeding is really not the problem. The reason to line breed is if you have an animal with an unusual trait that you want to recreate or intensify. Those animals usually bring a higher price, and are purchased by people who should understand the genetics of what they are buying.

We have a limited gene pool here that is not very likely to expand. What is irresponsible is when people carelessly "line breed" perfectly normal animals. There is no reason to inbreed normal animals. It is just laziness. I have not met many people who line breed BTS that aren't responsible about their projects.

Totally agree Jeff...
Most people would buy a pair animals from the same breeder then breed them... Inadvertant "line breeding" I suppose. But that's were the irresponsibility of breeding comes in I suppose.

If people have the full intention of breeding when purchasing animals they should (in all honesty) source unrelated pairs...

[kl]

Inbreeding is difficult to avoid with the rarer species. For example, with species such as Blotched and Centrilians, there are less than about 30 of each of these in the states. Out of those animals, maybe one or 2 pairs are producing. Now, over a few yrs, you accumulate a few babies but have little means of being able to get unrelated animals to breed with those offspring. Now you have to ask yourself if inbreeding them a couple of generations is ok or, do you just keep them as pets. Right now there are several centrilian offspring in the states that are now just old enough to breed but they all came from the same pair. Outside of those babies there are probably less than another 10 in the states. What do these people do?

One interesting note about inbreeding: Many yrs ago a very small number of Jacksons Chameleons were released in Hawaii and today, they are commonly found in the wilds. This was many yrs ago and since chameleons breed like mice, many, many generations of inbreeding have had to occur and yet there's been no mention by anyone that this is affecting that wild population. I don't know if anyone really knows exactly how many yrs of inbreeding it takes before any problems actually start showing up. Does anyone know of any studies about this.

KL

[Scotts1au]

There are many populations of lizards on Pacific islands that have origins thousands of years ago but have survived only from related individuals. I believe that reptile have a much greater capacity to overcome these issues than mammals.

[Lea]

Studies in Australia have shown that each blue tongue only has a habitat or territory range of around 2km and so the possibility that when do get to a breeding age, the adults males are going to be somewhat related to their female chosen partner, at least as 2nd cousins or possibly hooking up with a great aunt or uncle, is kind of high.

It is hard to know the outcome of "inbreeding" like this for skinks, unless studies are done to examine traits or weaknesses within populations. As Scott alluded to, it may be that the genetic weaknesses are much more profound and present within mammalian populations than they are with reptiles. They seem to have a kind of strength to overcome the evils of time like no other.

Snake and crocodiles have been used in medical trials for the possible benefits they have for immunity and natural ability to fight cancer causing cells. It is possible, even though it would go against our "beliefs and understanding" as humans, that inbreeding in reptiles is a way of strengthening the gene pool and not weakening it

[Jeff]

Rare species are pretty much the same as a rare individual animal. Obviously there are times when related animals will have to be bred because there is no other option. Again though, the offspring will be expensive to buy, and they don't typically find their way into the hands of the average pet owner that isn't aware of the genetics.

Even so, I think just about everyone would agree that it is preferable to breed unrelated animals whenever possible. My previous comments were directed at the species where it is possible for anyone to acquire unrelated animals just as easily as siblings. There really is no reason for someone in the U.S. to breed two normal looking northern siblings. When people do, I believe they weaken the overall gene pool we have.

I have heard from multiple long-time breeders that bts could probably be line bred for at least 10 generations without any noticeable problems. I have no reason to not believe that. I just think that line breeding should be done by people who know what they are doing, and know the genetic make up of their original breeders. It is not fair to be selling F8 animals to unsuspecting people who may buy two F8 siblings to breed. It is likely that at SOME point genetic defects will result. Until we know at what point that happens, I think it is best to breed the most genetically diverse animals we can. This is just one more reason to buy any animals from a knowledgeable and ethical breeder.

[critterguy]

It is definetly best for us to try to maintain diversity of bloodlines we have.

One issue is that certain animals, esp attractive ones or those owned by breeders, will get overrepresented in future generations. Breeders can help with this by giving all healthy animals, even ones that might not be the prettiest a chance to breed.

[supersnakeman101]

ok i saw this with snakes from BHB reptiles ( if you from the states you probably heard of them) they were trying to produce more scaliness corn snakes and ended up having to put asleep like 5 or 6 babies because of genetic problems

[Red Ink AUS]

There are many populations of lizards on Pacific islands that have origins thousands of years ago but have survived only from related individuals. I believe that reptile have a much greater capacity to overcome these issues than mammals.

Interesting Scott...

I'm not sure though if they would be as applicable to captivity though...
I have no doubt that reptiles have a higher tolerance for in breeding but in the wild defects that might weaken the individual don't survive... unlike in captivity as it is a sustained environment from external factors.

Very interesting topic.

[Richard.C]

what about colony animals in the wild,eg cunningham skinks,where dominant male of colony would mate any females of the colony,,young females that he has probably fathered