KelliH
doesn't drink the koolaid
I decided to do some tegu research on my own since I am thinking of putting together a small breeding group of my own, and I emailed Ron St. Pierre to ask him about these, since that is were they (supposedly) came from originally.
The reply I got was extremely helpful and very interesting. It does explain some things. Basically, the St. Pierre's worked with four different "color varieties" (for lack of a better term) of Black & White Tegus.
1. Normal - average, not much white, males got about 4'
2. Chacoan - original breeding stock came from Bert, and the founding male was very large. In the second year of producing them, they noticed the animals had more white on the heads than normal B & W's, the best were held back, and this was the start of the "Chacoan" strain, in which some of the tegus were a bit larger than average (averaged about 4.5' for males but a couple were even bigger). The explanation for the name "Chacoan" is quite interesting: "The difference between these babies and our normals were like comparing and average California kingsnake to a Desert phase california kingsnake (hence why Ron picked the name Chacoan to describe them as in Chacoan desert even though black and whites do not occur in the desert areas - bad name choice for range but good for color"
3. White Headed - These were simply exceptional, high white Chacoans. These could be up to 50% white. The amount of white they would have could not be determined until they were about 18", and average size for males was, again, 4.5'. Apparantly, right around the same time a bunch of tegus from Paraguay were imported that had a lot of white on them, and importers and wholesalers called them whatever they wanted to and marketed them as such.
4. White headed laced - bright white heads with a laced pattern. These animals were given away as pets so the line probably does not exist any longer.
The reply I got was extremely helpful and very interesting. It does explain some things. Basically, the St. Pierre's worked with four different "color varieties" (for lack of a better term) of Black & White Tegus.
1. Normal - average, not much white, males got about 4'
2. Chacoan - original breeding stock came from Bert, and the founding male was very large. In the second year of producing them, they noticed the animals had more white on the heads than normal B & W's, the best were held back, and this was the start of the "Chacoan" strain, in which some of the tegus were a bit larger than average (averaged about 4.5' for males but a couple were even bigger). The explanation for the name "Chacoan" is quite interesting: "The difference between these babies and our normals were like comparing and average California kingsnake to a Desert phase california kingsnake (hence why Ron picked the name Chacoan to describe them as in Chacoan desert even though black and whites do not occur in the desert areas - bad name choice for range but good for color"
3. White Headed - These were simply exceptional, high white Chacoans. These could be up to 50% white. The amount of white they would have could not be determined until they were about 18", and average size for males was, again, 4.5'. Apparantly, right around the same time a bunch of tegus from Paraguay were imported that had a lot of white on them, and importers and wholesalers called them whatever they wanted to and marketed them as such.
4. White headed laced - bright white heads with a laced pattern. These animals were given away as pets so the line probably does not exist any longer.
I am just tired of the breeders that know the history of them hiding the facts. Somehow they seem to think, what people don't know won't hurt them. Me on the other hand think people should know the truth and than have the choice to choose if they want an animal that might just come with many problems due to the history of inbreeding so heavy.
