# There are 2 types of Duprasis.....



## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

Who knew?? 

Mine are Egyptian......they look like this










Today one arrived that looks like this.......










She's Algerian, isn't she fabulous??

This happened totally by accident I didn't even mean to get another / different type, the BEST things usually happen by accident don't they??


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## Mujician (Mar 7, 2007)

The egyptian one looks cuter because of its longer fur. Are duprasi good to handle? Or are they nippy?


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

before I owned them I'd heard they *could* be nippy but none of mine have been, they're really docile and a lot slower than mongolian gerbils, I really love them : victory:


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

I love the new girl, are you going to try and get her a male?

My 2 are usually very sweet but when I put them together the male became very protective of his wife. Now Ive split them hes back to being his usual friendly self


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

Shell195 said:


> I love the new girl, are you going to try and get her a male?


she came with a "friend" but he looks more Egyptian, which is a good thing because if he was _exactly_ the same I'd be worried they were related which I had suspected - you just can't trust people :whistling2:

I just put them in together this evening and they seem quite happy together, hopefully I'll either get little Algerian babies or some of the ones I'm picking up in Holland will be Algerians - we can always hope :flrt:


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

NaomiR said:


> she came with a "friend" but he looks more Egyptian, which is a good thing because if he was _exactly_ the same I'd be worried they were related which I had suspected - you just can't trust people :whistling2:
> 
> I just put them in together this evening and they seem quite happy together, hopefully I'll either get little Algerian babies or some of the ones I'm picking up in Holland will be Algerians - we can always hope :flrt:


 
Fingers crossed:flrt:


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## Twiglet (May 6, 2009)

I love duprasi and have had both over the years. I've also had algerian type babies crop up in egyptian litters and vise versa. 
Unless some one out there has been hiding pure stock, there are no pure lines still out there (unless that has changed in the last few years) which is a huge pity. At least they aren't prone to the problems that the dwarf hamster hybrids are.


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## Pouchie (Feb 9, 2008)

Agree with Kat about there probably being no pure subspecies of either but still think it is commendable to try to breed together Duprasi who look the same.

Most do either look Algerian with the clean yellow and sharp change to white belly, triangular shorter face etc OR Egyptian, bluish streaked coat with less defined divide between belly color and longer snout etc 

So its at least fairly easy to keep the two separate and if there is the opposite subspecies somewhere in the background its still better than just breeding them altogether and creating one UK hybrid (in my humble opinion :halo: )

Did any of that make any sense? :blush: :lol2:

I know what I mean.


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

I know what you mean too:2thumb:


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## Pouchie (Feb 9, 2008)

phew :lol2:


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

I'm with you too Pouchie - but I've been thinking about it a lot lately too so that helps, but your words of wisdom are not wasted on me as I am going to try to "seperate" the algerians and the egyptians where ever possible, you never know, a few generations down we could yet have pure ones back here in the UK, that's if I can get them to breed true :2thumb:


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## Twiglet (May 6, 2009)

Pouchie said:


> Agree with Kat about there probably being no pure subspecies of either but still think it is commendable to try to breed together Duprasi who look the same.
> 
> 
> So its at least fairly easy to keep the two separate and if there is the opposite subspecies somewhere in the background its still better than just breeding them altogether and creating one UK hybrid (in my humble opinion



No arguments here about that!

Look at shaws jirds... UK shaws jirds are totally different to the other strains thanks to their heavily hybridised background. 
Well done for making the effort to keep them as 'pure' as possible though. Just dont be too suprised when you get the odd baby that look like the other subspecies pop up in a litter. 

I found pallid gerbils to be the same... I had several 'cheesemans' appear in litters from time to time and they share a similarly misidentified background as both the shaws and duprasi. Poor old meriones genus... they do seem to have suffered rather alot in this respect.

The way I see it, these hybrids are perfectly ok to breed. Lets face it, we aren't going to be releasing them into the wild and they do not suffer from any nasty health issues caused by the original and subsequent hybridisation so In my humble opinion... why not preserve what we have as best we can? I'd rather than that start hollering about the evil of hybrids and loose these animals from captive circles all together. 



> you never know, a few generations down we could yet have pure ones back here in the UK, that's if I can get them to breed true :2thumb:


The difficulty there will be keeping the new pure stock away from the hybrids. I've seen this happen with the pure lines of campbells and winter whites on a couple of occasions. Fingers crossed that we can land some pure stock and toes crossed that they dont fall into missinformed hands who breed in a cross and dont realise or want to tell anyone...


My 2p....


Kat


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## Pouchie (Feb 9, 2008)

Twiglet said:


> why not preserve what we have as best we can? I'd rather than that start hollering about the evil of hybrids and loose these animals from captive circles all together.


Agree. 

And I often get to thinking about how subspecies get classified by these scientists anyhow. 

I am working with Tristrams Jirds Meriones tristrami , and they come in regional variations whereby they can be the size of a pallid gerbil or up to a large Mongolian or even a Persian apparently.

There are regional variations of things like Asian Garden Dormice where in some locations they are grey and in others they are brown looking a bit like European Garden Dormice.

So what makes scientists group these together and not divide them into subspecies?

Thats all we're talking about with the Duprasi - regional variation.


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

Twiglet said:


> dont want to tell anyone...


this is (generally speaking) the main problem :bash:


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

If I get 2 types in the nest I will be shouting it from the rooftops


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## NaomiR (Jan 26, 2009)

and there's a really good chance of that because your female is my (Algerian) one's sister......


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## Shell195 (May 31, 2007)

NaomiR said:


> and there's a really good chance of that because your female is my (Algerian) one's sister......


 
That makes it even more exciting:2thumb:


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