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This is the newest morph available to the bearded dragon industry. The Italian Leatherback is actually a visual het for the silkback dragon. A dragon that displays this trait is a heterozygous carrier of the trait. This means that the Italian leatherback is heterozygous (het) for Silkback (the complete reduction or absence of scaling). These are our favorite genetics, and we have found it most interesting among the other available bearded dragon morphs, mostly because of how simple it is to diversify the genetics. Italian Leatherbacks first showed up in Italy, and were produced by a man named Alessandro. As we recall, he produced a dragon that showed significant reduction in tubercles. (What are tubercles? Tubercles are the raised scales found on the back and other parts of the bearded dragon) He used this dragon, and produced more like it through the next generation breeding. When he then crossed the animals displaying this characteristic to each other, he produced an animal with what appeared to be no scales at all (silkback). He consistently produced these results. Alessandro crossed the originally displaying animals (leatherback) to a red line and a yellow line of bearded dragons. This produced the red and yellow leatherback lines that we have today. These animals were continually crossed to the smoother animals to produce the smoothest quality leatherbacks. The reason why these animals are so easy to outcross is because you can see a physical characteristic which indicates the animals’ genetics. This is known as a genetic marker, in this case being the reduction of tubercules. You can see its leatherback, so you know its het for the silkback gene. It makes things simpler than your recessive genetics with no visible genetic markers. Just as the translucent gene, we like to refer to the leatherbacks as “low expression leatherbacks” and “high expression leatherbacks.” There are significant varying levels of the smoothness in the leatherback appearance. These include slightly reduced tubercles all the way to leatherbacks that have severe scale and tubercle reduction. Although leatherbacks have been originally bred to produce a reduction in tubercles, some leatherbacks have been bred to show a reduction in the actual size of the scale as well. Say an average scale is a 1/16” square, the leatherbacks have show to be able to reduce that scaling to lets say 1/32” square. This makes the appearance of the scaling the very much smaller. A lot of leatherbacks will have a wrinkle like look to them because of this genetic mutation. Italian leatherbacks are known for showing significant reduction in tubercles on the back, on the sides of the base of the tail closest to the body. They are also known for the absence of or severe reduction of the scaling in the side spikes. We have, and are working with these lines extensively. They produce nice healthy animals because you can continually out cross the genetics into new lines with no delays due to the fact that you can see the animals a carrier. We also believe the coloration is more vivid, and shows more contrast with the reduction or absence of tubercles. It appears as if the color has more impact as a flat canvas than a rough bumpy one. Another gene that has been discovered in America was the Anna AC line, which is a line of genetics that works the same as the Italian Leatherbacks. There were the same genetics, just produced in different parts of the world. They have been recently crossed together (anna ac x Italian leatherback) and silkbacks have been produced by many breeders in doing so. We do not recommend the combination of the Italian leatherback/Anna AC leatherback and recessive leatherback genes. The offspring of an Italian Leatherback het for recessive leatherback crossed to recessive leatherback for instance, would produce recessive leatherbacks, and Italian leatherbacks in the same clutch. How would you accurately tell the difference between the genes without raising the animal to breed able size and prove out its genetics? This has, can and surely will cause confusion among the different leatherback genetics. Please feel free to contact us with any additional information or questions at contact@dragonfortress.com Thanks! DragonFortress.com CLICK TO GO BACK TO GENETICS MAIN PAGE Last updated 1/5/2010 |