introduction
So your looking or just bought home your first crestie and the first thing you've notice is that there is a great variety of different colours, patterns and oddities. Welcome to the confusing world of traits and morphs!
The term traits applies more to cresties than morphs, however some of you will be more familiar with the term morph from other reptile species like Royal Pythons and Leopard geckos. I'm not going to get to get too hooked up in the science of traits as the majority of you here will just want to know what sort of crestie you have! However there are plenty of sites if you have a google that'll go into phenotypes like HERE. Cresties mainly do not follow the rules applied to morphs despite many referring to them as such due to the fact that they are not 100% predictable. I'm of the opinion that the term morph instead of trait is more readily used to describe cresties simply because its much more commonly used with other reptiles. |
There are (thankfully!) very few actual/recognized morphs in the crestie world, but a wonderful array of various traits that a crestie could be showing or have somewhere within their lineage (past parentage) that could express later with produced offspring...be that in the direct offspring from a pair or much further down the generational line.
Traits are IMO broken into major and minor categories.
Typically a crestie will visually show at least two distinguishing traits...This will be the colour and the pattern (or lack off) you are seeing when looking at your crestie and are considered major traits. They can also display multiple other traits besides the main 2 which you will see very shortly :)
Each trait may vary in quality, shade and quantity....the names given to various traits cover a very broad spectrum of what may fall into that category.
Just to add to the utter mind boggle, many definitions of a trait have evolved passed the original outlined spec's due to breeders working on, improving and fine tuning a particular trait.
It should also be mentioned that not all cresties can be pigeon holed, so don't panic if your's doesn't quite **fit** the considered standard. Everybody loves an oddball!
I will also be covering structure in this section, though this isn't always trait dependent as external factors an affect this too.
Note/disclaimer/cover my back: This is just one guide, it may differ slightly on other sites. Staying true to this sites philosophy, don't be restricted by what you read here. Look at other sites, use multiple resources and talk to other keepers to aid you in understanding traits. Give yourself a more rounded view of what may be considered what as different keepers have slightly varying views and standards for traits.
So First things first, lets break this down into easy chunks! These sections are going to be extremely image intensive as i'm a firm believer in seeing multiple examples to get a more varied view where possible.
Traits are IMO broken into major and minor categories.
Typically a crestie will visually show at least two distinguishing traits...This will be the colour and the pattern (or lack off) you are seeing when looking at your crestie and are considered major traits. They can also display multiple other traits besides the main 2 which you will see very shortly :)
Each trait may vary in quality, shade and quantity....the names given to various traits cover a very broad spectrum of what may fall into that category.
Just to add to the utter mind boggle, many definitions of a trait have evolved passed the original outlined spec's due to breeders working on, improving and fine tuning a particular trait.
It should also be mentioned that not all cresties can be pigeon holed, so don't panic if your's doesn't quite **fit** the considered standard. Everybody loves an oddball!
I will also be covering structure in this section, though this isn't always trait dependent as external factors an affect this too.
Note/disclaimer/cover my back: This is just one guide, it may differ slightly on other sites. Staying true to this sites philosophy, don't be restricted by what you read here. Look at other sites, use multiple resources and talk to other keepers to aid you in understanding traits. Give yourself a more rounded view of what may be considered what as different keepers have slightly varying views and standards for traits.
So First things first, lets break this down into easy chunks! These sections are going to be extremely image intensive as i'm a firm believer in seeing multiple examples to get a more varied view where possible.
Big thankyou to Gary over at Crestie Jungle for helping to write and put this together...I still get muddled up beyond the basics myself so having Gary to correct me when i'm blatantly speaking out my ass or explain the subtleties properly was more than a help!
I'd also like to thank in advance all the keepers and breeders who gave permission for their pictures to be used in this section. They've helped me to help you. :)
Pictures used are copyrighted either to myself (where applicable) or to the keeper/breeder that allowed its use. All pictures, bar mine, are linked to the facebook pages belonging to the original source....so if you have a minute, give them a like!