Lance, go and re-read Jim's (The Chameleon Company) post a bit more carefully as you obviously didn't read everything he wrote clearly. Then apply it to the common knowledge of dealing with wild caught females and I think it will be clearer to you. But, as it seems you don't understand the inherent risks of dealing with WC females I'll break it down for you.
What Jim said was that these hatchlings are from wild caught females. I don't see where he says anything different from what has been previously posted other than adding that the females could be from a different local. Now, because it is basically next to impossible to tell the females from various locals apart with 100% certainty, yes, there is a chance that these babies could be hybrids. Buyers of WC animals are at the mercy of the exporters in Madagascar to make sure they label the animals correctly when shipped out. Now, why we are fairly confident that these animals are indeed pure is because Jim was there with the importer when he received the shipment and unpacked the freshly imported boxes that were labeled Nosy Mitsio. Having the ability to hand pick the animals fresh from being imported gives us the edge above everyone else in making sure the animals are in fact pure because there is no chance that maybe a female is mistakenly kept in a mis-labeled cage and sold as something different by accident at the importer's facility, i.e. Ambanja, Sambava, ect. and visa versa.
Now, does this fact mean that they are 100% pure and we can sell them uncolored as undoubtedly pure Mitsios? No, it doesn't, but we have the highest degree of probability out of the few people that were able to acquire females that they are indeed pure because of this fact. This is why we are comfortable saying that we are the 1st to hatch this new local in the States. But, if it happens that they don't turn out pure then that most likely means everyone else's females aren't Mistsio specific either because of this fact. But, usually when an animal such as a Panther is imported for the first time the exporters make every attempt to make sure they are specific to their local because the increase in money they get from them. To back this claim up I'll do a basic economics lesson for you.
Usually when a new local is imported the exporters go to great lengths to ensure that they label the animals right because that diminishes their credibility among their importer clients in future shipments. Bottom line is that "new local" animals of any species command a higher dollar amount because of their newness. Mislabeling a shipment will essentially lead to less money in an exporter's pocket because the importers can't trust them to get the order right causing them to be hesitant to shell out more money for animals they can't trust to be where they are claimed to be from. This is because whatever consumers bought the new locals the previous time that were "burned" won't want to spend the inflated prices they did previously to get unspecific locals which means that is less of a pool, which is small to begin with, of people for the importer to sell to. It all comes down to money at the end of the day and if the Z importers can't sell the animals because the limited people who buy fresh WC's are leery of loosing money on non specific animals again they won't want to pay a higher price for a new local from Y exporter which means in order for him to sell the animals he has the price will have to drop - meaning... the exporters will make significantly less money overall which they, nor anyone in their position would want. But, this still doesn't mean that they are guaranteed pure animals either but the probability is high that they are. This leaves you as the end consumer the option of buying or not buying, which is your decision.
I hope this lengthy post clears up some misconceptions you jumped to. I think if you read the posts a bit more slowly and comprehended what you read you would see that there isn't anything "fishy" going on. Jim did not say anything different from what was already said except he did clarify that there was the chance of them not being pure Mitsios, a fact apparent to just about anyone familiar to Panthers. What I can say with 100% certainty, however, is not knowing the basics about wild caught Panthers and females in general shows that you most likely don't know enough to properly keep them for the long term as all of this is fairly common knowledge which in turn undoubtedly means you won't "be able to get [yourself] a mitsio", at least from us anyways. My advice for you Lance is to start out slow, build up some knowledge with the more common Panthers or even a Veiled for that matter and then try to get into the WC or F1 realm, as it isn't for the "newbie" hobbyists. But, there still is hope for you as we aren't the only ones in the US to have this new local and eventually there will hopefully be other lines available for you to buy from. Vincent Wong is one breeder who is currently working with this local and last I checked has had some success breeding them. Lane Gergely is another person who has some animals from the original shipment too. Keep an eye out and I am sure you'll eventually see something crop up.
-Matt Jillson
