A return to what got me started

[citricprincess]

So, while I have definately been spending much time on the snakes, the first reptiles I ever kept were crested geckos. When I left for college and found myself realizing my mental health was not surviving without an animal I could touch and interact with, after 18 years of never being more than a week without such (the betta fish I had at the time were not fitting that role) , I made use of the fact that my school allowed non furry animals upon approval. I /wanted/ a snake, but roomy said no, so I got a crested gecko. Mana was a partial pin harlequin female, and a while later I got Mokuba, a red based bicolor with dal spotting. They were of modest origin, taught me much, and made cute babies, one of which still lives with my best friend half way across the country.

Sadly, this pair is no longer with me,and I miss them dearly.

But I’m moving forward.

Technically I’ve had Goku for a few years now. I found him in a petstore and fell in love with his unusual white tipping. He hasn’t had much chance to shine in my collection til recently, and is still a bit skittish from not being handled much, admittedly. I also worry he’s a little scrawny? I’ve been using the pangea diet that adds insects, but he has 0 prey drive that I’ve seen. At all.

What would he be considered? Probably partial pin Harley with white tipping? He has a few dal spots too, though they seem to have faded with age instead of increased? Much more obvious in the juvinile pics when I brought him home.

Regardless, he’s a handsome critter.

The there’s my newest addition, ChiChi. I got her from an expo about a month ago. I’m kicking myself because anxiety issues make me forgetful in social settings and I asked no questions of lineage, nor got contact from the seller. Then I turned around and helped my cousin get all of that info as she bought her first snake. So while, unlike Goku, she might have some background info, I know zip of it nor have a way to obtain it XP But I love her anyway.

I think she’s harlequin with high% partial pinstripe. Might be tricolor? It’s hard to tell the cream from the white, especially when she flares. And I’m pretty sure she’s yellow base, it looks like a light lavender sometimes, but I hear yellow can fade to that with age? Wouldn’t mind input from those with keener eyes than I. I was just transfixed by how fully her dorsal and head were covered with cream.

I’ve been trying to study up in the morphopedia, as it’s been over 5 years since I’ve paid close attention to cresties as a whole, but the way they’re mostly polygenic often makes me unsure where the lines between traits truly are.

Goku is actually in a temp keep right now, as I made another dive and set up his keep as bioactive. Letting it take root now, and it seems to be doing well, but I do NOT have a green thumb, so I have some worry.

The arrowleaf at least seems to be thriving. The pothos were just put in a couple days ago, the last to arrive. Eager for them to grow up so I can get them around the wood climb and get some foliage up high. I have springtails and purple Dwarf isopods that seem to be doing well already, I’m worried for the bigger isopods, as there were fairly few to start and I’ve already found one or two dead, but I know they prosper slower. And I don’t fear for them too much even after I put Goku back in, since, as I mentioned, no prey drive. Excited for this project. Getting me a lil obsessed with using house plants to try to turn my thimb green. Have another pothos that didn’t fit so it got potted on my desk to see if I can keep it alive lol.

And just for bonus, here are pics of Mana and Mokuba, taken with the lousy old phone I had a near decade ago. Mokuba used to purposely tease Rosswelle. Somehow neither of them ever lost their tails. Haven’t been so lucky with Goku.

[autumngeckos]

So since you’ve been gone, they’re not considered polygenic in the same sense as they used to anymore. They’re polygenic in the sense that there’s no single-gene normal, but almost everything is related to a genetic trait rather than being linebred or “random” as people used to think. Right now, it is believed that all cresties carry the tigering-trait, which is responsible for how the pattern breaks, the dark-base trait, and then at least one type of pattern. Lineage is still very usefull in telling what is up genetically, as some traits look similar, especially in specific combos. There’s also still a ton that hasn’t been discovered yet, so some geckos are difficult to pin down since they might have something that people just haven’t really tried breeding out yet, and the current understanding could still change.

That being said;

Goku is a gecko that i personally wouldn’t make any guesses about until I’ve seen what he’s producing… He could just be a partial pinstripe harlequin, but he could also be something else, like empty back, or capp, or something else entirely. With no lineage it’s hard to tell, but head fringing usually means there’s something more going on.

Crested geckos have two types of pattern, white pattern and orange pattern. If a gecko has mainly white or orange pattern, it’s a harlequin/flame, if it has both it’s a tricolour. Orange pattern only shows on dark and red bases, so since Chichi seems to have both orange pattern and white pattern she is not a yellow base. My best bet would be that she’s a lavender tricolour almost full pin. She also has snowflaking, which is characterised by drippy white underneath the pinning, and white spots around the body. There could be more going on, but with how light she is it’s difficult to tell, since all the colours seem to kind of mix together.

[citricprincess]

Thank you for that explination! It clears up a lot. I was hesitant to call ChiChi a tri-color because in the morphopaedia it mentions there needs to be aproximately equal parts of all three colors, and I wasn’t sure she had enough white to qualify. She’s not fired up as bright as she goes in any of the pictures, but I haven’t seen her that bright since the expo I got her at. This pic from the drive home is as close as I have, but the lighting is terrible and makes her base look much darker than it actually was. I guess, though, looking back at it I’m not sure why I questioned the lavender. It does show higher contrast between her colors though, making her markings slightly less blendy.

And I was also wondering if Goku might have something more in him. I’m excited to get him paired, and hope to get a bit more variety of females in the future, but current funds and a recent spree of murphy’s law events has put further purchases on hold. If those white tips are anything that will pass them on, I’ll be over the moon, 'cause that marking is utterly amazing on him in my opinion.

[autumngeckos]

When it comes to tricolours it really depends on the individual, some say they need to be exactly 33/33/33 basecolour/orange/white, while others (myself included) think all three colours just need to be obvious on the gecko. Genetically, they’re the same though, that’s where line/selective breeding comes in, the genes are the same, but you can selectively breed towards more white, more orange, for them to have an even spread and so on.