Bearded dragons- defining breeds and colours

[Dave W]

I may sound like an idiot but sometimes the advice on the net can be baffling but here goes...
We have bearded dragon phases, so I get that but I was wondering if someone can explain to me the different ones ie. Fire and ice, gg, morphs, hypos, leucistics(sp?).
Sorry to sound like an idiot but I hate not knowing! I must crave knowledge or something....

Many, many thanks in advance,
Amy

(btw this is hubby Daves account so Ive hijacked it!)

[HadesDragons]

Originally Posted by adamzarahmae

I may sound like an idiot but sometimes the advice on the net can be baffling but here goes...
We have bearded dragon phases, so I get that but I was wondering if someone can explain to me the different ones ie. Fire and ice, gg, morphs, hypos, leucistics(sp?).
Sorry to sound like an idiot but I hate not knowing! I must crave knowledge or something....

Many, many thanks in advance,
Amy

(btw this is hubby Daves account so Ive hijacked it!)

It's very subjective in a lot of cases, which creates no end of fun and games... My advice is that unless you know what the parents were, call a beardie by what it looks like - "red phase", "yellow phase" etc...

Some of the names are a bit simpler - I'll run through the ones you listed:

"Morph" - a visual (or behavioural) difference between individuals in the same species. "Blood Red" is a morph; "Citrus" is a morph; "Hypo" is a morph etc.

"Fire and Ice" - a US breeder: Fire and Ice Dragons. Dragons advertised as being "Fire and Ice" should have been bred in the US by Fire and Ice. Dragons advertised as being "Fire and Ice line" means that their ancestors were bred in the US by Fire and Ice.

"GG" aka "German Giant" - somewhat unknown origin, but possibly a hybrid of the central bearded dragon P.vitticeps and the coastal bearded dragon P.barbata. Or possibly just a very large locality of P.vitticeps. These were bred a while ago, but virtually all of the ones in the UK have been cross bred to regular-sized dragons, so the term is pretty much meaningless. Most dragons described as being "German Giant" are less than a quarter, if at all. Generally speaking a UK dragon advertised as "German Giant" will be no different to a non-German Giant beardie.

"Hypo" - short for "hypomelanistic"; literally "less melanin". Melanin is the pigment which makes them dark, so hypos are a lot lighter than regular beardies, and have clear nails without the dark spine to them. It's one of the few beardie morphs caused by a simple, single gene mutation. They are almost white as babies - more photos / information here: Hades Dragons UK - Hypomelanism in Bearded Dragons

"Leucistic" - technically an animal with no pigment, so it should be white all over. In bearded dragons, they should be called "marketed leucistic" as they're not technically leucistic; it's just a name that was incorrectly used that's stuck. They're very white beardies, visually similar to snows and white hypos.


The majority of beardie morphs are selectively-bred, which makes it a lot harder to judge what one is unless it's an extreme example - e.g. where do you draw the line between "Flame Red", "Blood Red", "Red Phase", "Normal-with-a-tiny-bit-of-red" etc...

There are a few "simple" beardie morphs though, as well as hypo:

"Translucent" - simple recessive, causes the beardie to have a translucent appearance, especially as a baby, with jet-black eyes:



"Leatherback / Silkback" - a co-dominant gene. The het form (one copy of the gene) causes the beardie to have reduced scales and a very smooth appearance. The homo (super) form causes the beardie to have no scales, and to feel a bit like the skin on your eyelid. This is a young leatherback - note how much smaller the scales on his back and his arms are, and those around the back of his head:



This is an adult silkback, owned by the Dachius in the US:




"Albino" - stops the beardie from producing melanin. Other colours aren't affected though:




Hope that makes a bit of sense... generally speaking the naming of the non-simple morphs is a bit of a mess. It's often better to base your expectations of a dragon on what it looks like and what its parents looked like rather than on what it's called...

[Dave W]

i think we understand that lol

we have a trio of citrus phase and they all look very pale with a slight citrus colour under neck. they have clear nails so would this mean they would possibly be leucistic ?

many thanks for the great info though.

[Dave W]

sorry i mean hypo not leucistic

[JustJordan]

silk backs just dont look right!?
they arnt right without their spikes

[ooMISSPERFECToo]

does anyone else think the silk back looks a bit frog like? x

[JustJordan]

well my female lizzie..pictured on sig, has been classed as citrus, her mam was, i think her dad was too
pic isnt best, usually she is bright yellow most of the time...we call her the bananna coz some one thought i was holding one once when it was her
she has slight orange on her cheeks
thing is her nails are diff colours!
her front are clear...
her nails have the black/brownish spine

so whats going on?

[JustJordan]

Originally Posted by ooMISSPERFECToo

does anyone else think the silk back looks a bit frog like? x

OH thought the same thing when i showed him lol

[excession]

I think the silk back looks a bit grumpy.

Nice info though!

[HadesDragons]

Originally Posted by adamzarahmae

sorry i mean hypo not leucistic

Can you get some photos of them and their nails?

Originally Posted by JustJordan

well my female lizzie..pictured on sig, has been classed as citrus, her mam was, i think her dad was too
pic isnt best, usually she is bright yellow most of the time...we call her the bananna coz some one thought i was holding one once when it was her
she has slight orange on her cheeks
thing is her nails are diff colours!
her front are clear...
her nails have the black/brownish spine

so whats going on?

If her nails have the black / brown spine then she's very unlikely to be hypo - based on the photo in your signature it looks like she has dark nails? She could be a citrus, or a yellow phase or something similar. Any idea what her parents were?