Crested gecko traits/morphs help?

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Hey I got this crested gecko as a rescue and planning on breeding him with some females I have I am not sure on what morphs or traits he is can anyone help. If need better photos just tell me or if you need ones of him fired down or fired up or any at better angels or different angles and different sides of his body. What morphs/traits does he have?
@ghoulishcresties can you help me please you helped a lot on my last post and now I got into breeding them. So can you help me figure this one out.

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I don’t work with cresties so I can’t really help with the traits…

But in general, breeding when you can’t reliably ID a fairly common looking morph (correct me if I’m wrong on this guy, lol) is already not a good idea…
But it’s usually fairly frowned upon to pick up and breed rescues because there can be issues you don’t know about from previous care or unknown lineages.

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Gonna second what Christina said, and go even further to say you should not be breeding at your experience level, period. You absolutely must be able to identify traits reliably yourself, as well as know what a high quality versus low quality gecko looks like. How do you plan to sell something you can’t tell a customer what it is? There is a lot more to breeding than just putting two animals together, and if you don’t have the knowledge first, you shouldn’t move forward with anything until you do.

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I generally agree that you should be able to identify basic morphs HOWEVER not even the crested gecko community can agree on a lot of morphs and traits at the moment, and a lot of traits are still being mapped out, so it’s not nearly as easy and expected as with say BP breeding.

What constitutes a high quality vs lower quality is also up for debate, except for certain very obvious cases.

That being said, you should absolutely not breed a gecko just because you have it; it’s important to do research and understand what might be going on, and what pairings to avoid, even if you can’t know the genetics for sure.

Better pics would be needed to tell his morph, he seems to possibly be a brindlequin from the photos though

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@armiyana @noodlehaus @autumngeckos

Please don’t come at me like that. I have breed other species of reptiles and can identify them easily. I had females that grew up from babies and I just started really wanting to get into crested gecko breeding more I just sell my reptiles locally I am sorry for the way I explained it that is not way I wanted you guys to take it. I have practiced identifying him and other geckos online by printing off their photos and having my wife mix them up and ask me and I got most of right. I am familiar with brindle or brindlequins but now that looked that up it makes sense to me now with his back pattern and coloration a little bit. I wanted to see why he has a red/orange head and it has a blue/violet spot in the middle of his head? Any why he has red/orange head and has a blue/violet spot in the middle of his head? I was thinking he was a harlequin, partial Dalmatian yellow base. Maybe cream might be in him and maybe lavender because he looks lavender a little when he is alway the fires down. And hypo I was thinking but I am thinking no on hypo. But some of the other I think might be in him but cream and lavender are iffy and hypo because those and brindle I have not worked a lot with cresties and breed other traits of creators but cream, lavender, hypo, tiger, flame, red, brindle, and bi-color I haven’t worked a whole too lot but have bred and produce some of these morphs and identified them but when there are more morphs in one crestie with the 8 the traits I mentioned with more than just two or three traits it gets hard for me identify but I am asking because I am trying to get better at identifying these traits. Please tell if any traits that said he might be is right and when I talked about his red/orange head and blue/violet spot in the middle of his head

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No one is coming at you, we’re just advising you to get a good grip of the morphs and what works and doesn’t work together before you start breeding.

Like i said, crested geckos are nothing like most other reptiles, and their genetics are quite a bit more tricky as they are believed to be polymorphic by nature (depending on who you ask). Their genetics are also not fully understood as of yet, and many of the morphs known today are simply visual descriptors, rather than actual genetic morphs. They’re also one of the only reptiles where structure is taken into account, which is especially important when breeding animals that do not have anything special to offer otherwise.

Planning out potential breeding projects before even knowing what morph your gecko is, is not a good idea in the slightest. Especially not with a rescue animal. While i personally am not against breeding rescue geckos with no lineage, it takes a certain level of morph-understanding, to know what to expect from the pairings. While there are hidden gems out there, lots of geckos with no lineage are not breeding material.

He unfortunately seems to have poor structure, which again is not a definite no in terms of breeding, but should only be bred if the gecko has something else that is potentially worth breeding.

A gecko cannot be both lavender and yellow, as lavender is tied to black-base. Lavender is hypo interacting with black-base, and cream is not a trait but an expression. Brindlequin is a type of harlequin, typically a yellow-base, where tigering is showing as well. Bicolour is a specific expression of phantom. Those are things you should know before you start breeding.

Its hard to say what the orange on his head is, it might just be a misfire. The blue spot on his head id assume is just his head stamp.

A lot of older yellow animals also tend to appear lavender-ish, so that’s what i expect is going on here. A yellow brindlequin dalmatian would be my best guess, but like i said, better photos are needed to tell for sure what morph he is. Photos in better lighting, clearly showing his dorsal and laterals.

It is totally fair to still be learning, we’ve all been there, and it’s great that you actually want to put in the work, because a lot of crestie breeders don’t, but my best advise to you would be to learn before you start planning out your breeding projects! Don’t get an animal with the intention to breed before actually knowing what you have in your hands and whether it’s worth it!

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@autumngeckos thank you, I get what you saying the stuff you said helps and that is why I wanted to make sure what I thought he was and what I maybe thought he was but probably nots. I just wanted to make sure I got him down but I have never heard of a brindlequin but he didn’t look like a brindle to me. Is hypo and lavender the same? How can identify brindle, brindlequin, tiger, flame, cream, lavender, hypo, red, yellow, orange, red base, yellow base, orange base, dark base, and light base in crested geckos like specific colors or patterns or characteristics? Is (red or yellow or orange) the same as (red base or yellow base or orange base)?

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@autumngeckos what do you by him having poor structure? I just took the vet last Thursday for his first check up with me. I get that crested geckos are different that is why I haven’t got into to breeding them but some of my breeder friends are telling to do it and that they will let me buy some of their baby cresties to grow them up and some older to breed. I have only breed morphs of crestie traits I know my wife is crested gecko breeder too and she is trying to help me and she couldn’t really tell what he was. And she is really good at explaining and identifying traits and morphs of cresties. I will put more photos in of him out his with good lighting tonight or tomorrow morning and if I catch him fired up and fired down I will get pictures of both from all sides and angles of him in good lighting. Thank you again.

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Structure in cresties refers to their head-shape, good structure would mean that the head has defined crests and some width to it. Exactly how wide depends on who you ask, but a lot of people like them quite wide.

Hypo and lavender is not the same. Hypo is a trait in itself, lavender is what it is called when a dark-based animal also has hypo. Usually only the more black-ish dark-bases, since they then look lavender-ish in colour. Brindle is a phantom that has broken tigering on its dorsal and a bit down its lats, brindlequin is the non-phantom version. Tiger is when the animal has long unbroken stripes similar to a tiger. Can be both phantom and non-phantom. Flame is a harlequin with very little pattern, usually only on the dorsal, if it has any on its laterals it’s very very little. Cream is white pattern that is cream. The bases explain themselves, but light base is not a thing. There are three main bases, dark, red, and yellow, and yeah “red” and “red base” and so on is the same thing. Orange base is either a mix of red and yellow, or yellow and tangerine.

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I currently only own a handful of leopard geckos, so while the comparison isn’t quite the same, it does help demonstrate a bit.
These are females that I own. They are all pet quality, not breeding quality. Purchased originally at $20 or $175.

The first one has a longer body shape which generally isn’t a preference in leopard geckos. She also has 2 different sizes eyes that were not apparent as a baby. Her head is more pointed than usual in leopard geckos.

The second (though slightly overweight) has the more compact body and head shape. If I knew her history, she would be the only one I would consider breeding, but even so, she would produce pet quality offspring.

Third, again has the more ideal body conformation. The head is well proportioned, except she has larger than normal eyelids. She is super sensitive about light so can’t really get a better photo for that.



It’s mostly about being responsible when breeding.

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Do you keep yours on puppy pads by chance?

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He looks like a harlequin tiger pin dash, but clearer pics would help x

There’s a lot of morphs/traits etc to learn, I’m Infact helping many people learn them and even helping shops too. It’s a lot to take in and some take a while to get them all stored up there (in the brain) haha.
We all start somewhere. I know we all didn’t have a clue when first starting and learnt as we went on, even now more popping up for us to learn about :black_heart:

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Right now they’re actually in a tub in my adult BP rack on coco. The usual enclosure I have them in got torn down temporarily while I move things around in my critter room for the next couple weeks.

I usually keep them on coco or paper towels. I also used to do flat slate with some sand dusted in the crevices between stones or felt with some stones on top. I ended up with a surplus of dog pads that are actually too small for my doggo. There was just a stack nearby that worked well for photos on without stressing the girls too much. Hahah.

I’m using them for some baby quail I hatched for the brooder box. I might be trying the Leo’s out with some for a bit and see what happens. They also work fairly well as quarantine cageliners. I have a hatchling BP in QT on some in a different room ATM.

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Ok thanks! I was just curious! I’m still using paper towels for my little girl! Yours are so cute! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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