# leopard gecko`s and african fat tailed mating?



## the chameleon man (Jan 31, 2008)

hiya all, has anyone ever heard of this? 
my mate whoose got a pair of female leopards, and a male african fat tail has now reported to me that he`s got 7 eggs in a incubator... has anyone else heard of these two species breeding? because to me ive never heard of this happening but hey nature is bizarre, just look at us!!! help me forum wan kenobi... your my only hope...


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## NBLADE (Apr 11, 2007)

i haven't heard of fertile eggs from them, although they come from different conditions and shouldn't be kept together, so shouldn't really have the chance to mate


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## gillsboy (Jun 8, 2005)

the female leo's might have infertile eggs and it may have nothing to do with the male atall, other than that i dont know


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## the chameleon man (Jan 31, 2008)

*yup i know*



NBLADE said:


> i haven't heard of fertile eggs from them, although they come from different conditions and shouldn't be kept together, so shouldn't really have the chance to mate


yeah bud i agree with you, but he`s had them for 3 years now together, and last year he had 5 eggs, he left em inside the viv as we thought they would be infertile but to my shock we had a baby, it lived for 3 days until one of its parents ate it... my mate was on holiday when it hatched and the neighbour saw it all, who was looking after the lizards, so this year ive took him a incubator down and with a bit of luck we may have a new pet or two...


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## Diablo (May 25, 2007)

This as been attempted for many years crossing Fat Tail to leopard gecko a few people have had eggs hatch out but problems arised when they got older and none lasted more than 2 weeks. This would be due to different temps and humidty as you can not please both. It will be a first if he can get them to live and creating another HYBRID within the reptile kingdom. My advice don't play with natures creations keep species to each other and not mix.


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## miffikins (Feb 25, 2007)

I'm with Diablo on this. A friend of mine breeds a few hybrids cornsxmilks/kings etc and I don't get it at all. But if they have laid then you may aswell incubate the eggs and see, but if the young do not survive its probably best to seperate them as the females are wasting energy mating and laying for no real reason.

: victory:


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## the chameleon man (Jan 31, 2008)

*thanks for all your replies...*

thanks folks, i know that keeping the two together is wrong and they aint my pets, so im just after a shot in the dark to see if i could keep the young ones alive if they hatch, the advice ive had is great and i`ll let you all know if i have any joy, also im after female mellors chameleon c/b adult to mate with my male, im going to put a post up..thanks


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## TOMBUCHANAN (Jan 21, 2007)

Has anyone got any photos of the hybrids? I'd be really curious to see what they looked like.


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## DeanThorpe (Apr 9, 2006)

is it really messing with nature any more than line breeding for morphs is though?


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## Kimmy173 (Aug 2, 2007)

There's been plenty of hybrids from captivity. Mules are one, between a horse and a donkey. Ligers - Lions and Tigers. All offspring are infertile though so even if you do produce a possible leopard fat tail and if it survived it wouldn't be fertile so it wouldn't be creating a proper species as species are defined by being able to produce young. I think that's why people are saying it's against nature because hybrids wouldn't have happened in the wild so it's us playing our hands at God. 

However, saying that, apart from humidity there isn't a fat lot of difference between the husbandry of them. If the fat tail male lives with the female leos then he must have already decided on what humidity to keep them in to keep both species happy. Keep this with the babies and they have a chance at survival.


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## mike_marsh_101 (Aug 31, 2009)

my gf and I have just purchased a male african fat tail gecko to put in with our female albino leo.
In the pet shop, the african fat tails were in tanks of the same conditions as leopard geckos.
So will this affect the offspring as it was bred in shop under same conditions as leos.


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## POAGeckos (Jul 11, 2008)

I have heard of and seen these offspring born, But within the day or in a few days the babies who manage to hatch ended up dying of heart failures, etc. If this breeding was to be successful I wouldn't be against it, but since the ones I have seen all ended up dying soon after, I do not agree with breeding these together.


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## Breadrun (Mar 1, 2007)

Hybridisation an be done but as some people have mentioned most times they are infertile, I remember readon a long article about hybrids and very rarely you will get a hybrid which is fertile and there-fore be able to create the new "species"

I dont nescessarily agree with hybrids but I dont believe that it wouldnt happen in the wild, fair enough there are lots of species which wouldnt come into contact with each other but its not to say its impossible, I'm not sure where fat tails are from but lets say a freight from pakistan went to the country where fat tails were native and had a leopard gecko in the package which got out then who knows what might happen, as we all know most animals/reptiles will force themselved on a female and in the wild I would be sure that it happens which different species, think about all those new species they found a few years back in the amazon.....who is to say that 2 native species didnt breed to create the "new" species which they found


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## Breadrun (Mar 1, 2007)

Also going back to the new species in the amazon thing...I think evolution plays a part in it all, if certain species keep mixing/mating then eventually the babies will evolve to be able to live in the required habitat......................not saying it should be done and that it wouldnt be a lenghthy proccess with many fatalities but I'm just trying to say that nature is a stange and wonderful thing and works in many ways


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## SleepyD (Feb 13, 2008)

mike_marsh_101 said:


> my gf and I have just purchased a male african fat tail gecko to put in with our female albino leo.
> In the pet shop, the african fat tails were in tanks of the same conditions as leopard geckos.
> So will this affect the offspring as it was bred in shop under same conditions as leos.


 first fat-tails need more slightly different set-ups then leo's ~ higher humidity for one thing and really should *not* be housed together regardless of what the shop does or says.
I really would advise getting the fattie it's own set-up and keeping it seperate from the leo ~ notwithstanding the chance that he may try to mate with the leo they could well end up fighting when she rejects him.


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## Breadrun (Mar 1, 2007)

Also its not fair on the babies which will obviously die within a couple of weeks


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## DreadedDave (Apr 2, 2010)

*Possible hybrid in progress :O !!*

Hey ive got a Female AFT and a male Leo that have been housed together for 3 years with no problems at all, i give them a spray now and then and try to keep a happy medium for their slightly differing needs in humidity, but they both eat well and seem fine. Shes recently become a bit bulgy around the abdomen, vets think its fat but today i noticed the leo gripping on the back of her neck!! I didnt really think it would happen, i guess ill have to wait and see... ive had her over 12 years and the leo just over 3 which was rescued from being outside in the uk!

Whats anyones opinion?? i wasnt intending to try and make a hybrid,and the two geckos are always together and clearly enjoy the company. 

if they were to produce something which was a very unhealthy individual id have to seperate them to stop future clutches.


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## yasminnnn (Mar 20, 2010)

I find it so strange that so many petshops house afts and leos together considering the differences in habitat origin etc.. I guess just because they look similar? Thats the only reason I can think of,albeit a pretty bad one. Although so many people do seem to successfully do so its normally under leo conditions rather than afts. I've never kept fat tails so I don't know all that much about them. Its just another one of those funny things that always happens..like having to buy 2 baby beardies.. Not too keen on the idea of attempting hybrids though especially as its been tried tested and failed many times. And i'm sure accidentally many more times which haven't been documented.


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## loxocemus (Sep 2, 2006)

in my search for information on geckos i did come across the leo aft cross thing, the author of the post commented though the animal was healthy and required no special treatment it was very unattractive looking, like a dirty coloured leo and saw this crossing as a dead end hobby wise. hybrids in general are known for thier robust health and vigor, the term hybrid vigor is a testament to this so all hybrids shouldnt be classed the same but rather by a case to case basis on whether thier worth pursuing, obviously this depends largely on ur personal views on hybrids.

something did occur to me though regarding the choosen sex of the hybrid parents, in the lion/tiger crosses a male lion and a female tigers progeny are called ligers, thier prone to gigantism and are in fact the largest known cats alive today, ligers incidentally are not a modern day attraction and have been produced since at least the early 19th century, now the opposite cross is a tigon, a male tiger and a female lion, if anything thier prone to dwarfism but more importantly they can also suffer from facial deformitys, cleft palates and mishapen skulls. the point im trying to make is the progeny of a male aft and female leo may be a very different beast to the progeny of a male leo and female aft.

interesting stuff, my personal view on hybrids of all types is a positive one as long as thier honestly represented, which is where the hybrid debate gets a little muddy,

rgds
ed


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

loxocemus said:


> in my search for information on geckos i did come across the leo aft cross thing, the author of the post commented though the animal was healthy and required no special treatment it was very unattractive looking, like a dirty coloured leo and saw this crossing as a dead end hobby wise. *hybrids in general are known for thier robust health and vigor, the term hybrid vigor is a testament to this so all hybrids shouldnt be classed the same but rather by a case to case basis on whether thier worth pursuing,* obviously this depends largely on ur personal views on hybrids.
> 
> something did occur to me though regarding the choosen sex of the hybrid parents, in the lion/tiger crosses a male lion and a female tigers progeny are called ligers, thier prone to gigantism and are in fact the largest known cats alive today, ligers incidentally are not a modern day attraction and have been produced since at least the early 19th century, now the opposite cross is a tigon, a male tiger and a female lion, if anything thier prone to dwarfism but more importantly they can also suffer from facial deformitys, cleft palates and mishapen skulls. the point im trying to make is the progeny of a male aft and female leo may be a very different beast to the progeny of a male leo and female aft.
> 
> ...


If only this were true. Hybrid vigour is a very special case, generally applied to crossing two selectively inbred lines within a species to create offspring which present increased fitness relative to the parents. 'Fitness' in this case is subjective, and bearing in mind it is generally associated with crop plants, is based mainly on characters pertaining to seed production or growth.

Hybrid vigour is a somewhat controversial theory, and would be almost impossible to apply to a cross genus mating, as is being postulated here. Further more it applies in a very small number of cases. The most common occurrence is out-breeding depression, which if this cross were possible (and it isn't) would apply here as both species require different environmental condition, meaning compromising in either habitat is a reduction in fitness.

There have been numerous unsubstantiated claims about success in this pairing, but it has never been proven. The fact that many have tried, suggests they are genetically incompatible.

There was another thread a while back (although admittedly not as far back as the start of this thread) which raises some other issues.

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/lizards/380422-hybridization-fat-tail-leopard-geckos.html

Andy


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## loxocemus (Sep 2, 2006)

i remember some hybrid issues as well, one was corns to bulls (maybe gophers) but all the clutch had cleft palates, with the split directly up to the nostril, carpet and scrub again cleft palate but only in a portion of the clutch though all were said to be extremely aggressive, more than the norm for either parent i think they meant, shingle x bluetongue skinks, the offspring grew into very large adults apparently, pretty though, very shingle like scalation, a western diamond rattler cross, the aim of this was to produce a snow diamond, i can only assume that at the time there wasn't the correct mutations available in pure westerns, a lack of anery possibly, the resulting young had deformity's of the oesophagus and throat, some unable to breath at birth and some were also missing tongues.

theres the well known fertility issues in burm and retic crosses and the burm rock crosses and an unusually high death rate in neos as they aged, low fertility in chondro carpet crosses and supposedly missing egg teeth preventing successful hatching, though this isnt always the case as iv seen some excellent macro shots of carpondro's hatching and their egg teeth are very visible. some hybrids are well known for thier health and ease at which they start feeding etc cali crosses ruthveni crosses gopher crosses all seem to take to hybrid life with little to no problems. like i said i dont think hybrids can be classed as all bad or all good, theres plenty of examples of both and i have the feeling it can be a bit of a dna lottery that cant be predicted which is why i think a lot of hybrids keepers do what they do, theres always that unknown quantity, ur never quite sure whats going to pop out of that egg 

rgds
ed








i e is subjective, and bearing in mind it is generally associated with crop plants, is based mainly on characters pertaining to seed production or growth.

Hybrid vigour is a somewhat controversial theory, and would be almost impossible to apply to a cross genus mating, as is being postulated here. Further more it applies in a very small number of cases. The most common occurrence is out-breeding depression, which if this cross were possible (and it isn't) would apply here as both species require different environmental condition, meaning compromising in either habitat is a reduction in fitness.

There have been numerous unsubstantiated claims about success in this pairing, but it has never been proven. The fact that many have tried, suggests they are genetically incompatible.

There was another thread a while back (although admittedly not as far back as the start of this thread) which raises some other issues.

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/lizards/380422-hybridization-fat-tail-leopard-geckos.html

Andy[/QUOTE]


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## Geckogirl_88 (Apr 24, 2009)

Personally I dont think its a good idea.
AFTs need higher humidity than leos, but then no one could know what the babies would need. Some hatchlings may need higher humidity like AFTs and others need less humidity like Leos.
As much as there would be a 50/50 split genetics wise, you cant predict which genes will be passed on by which parent.
One hatchling may take after mum, another after dad, just like humans, except this could be life threatening for the babies.

If I were you, I would advise your friend to put the eggs in the freezer and seperate the two species. I know we can all get a bit carried away at the thought of babies, but if he really wants to breed, he can get a partner for one of them which is the same. 
I know what it's like to go through all that anticipation and build up from having eggs hatch only to watch the hatchling die a week or so later. Its a risk for any breeder. But for your friend it sounds like a guarentee. So even if he wont put a stop to this for their sake, maybe the thought of having to watch them die himself will put him off.
xx


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