RussellsViper
Member
Can fijian crested and banded iguanss be kept together in captivity??
fijian crested and banded iguanas
- Thread starter RussellsViper
- Start date
Would not advise that ... due to potential for hybridisation. Territorial too.
Does anyone know how the current status is for the captive Fiji crested? Last I heard, I think around 2009, the Australian Fiji crested were inbred and breeding had stopped about a decade earlier. Have any been imported since or are there any plans to import to boost the Australian population? Kula Eco Park in Fiji has a captive colony and there have been talks about sending some of those to zoos elsewhere.
Fiji crested and banded are allospecies. Mixing them would potentially risk cross-species disease, hybridization and aggression. A general rule is to never mix closely related species. However, if breeding of Fiji crested still is on hold in Australia and there are no plans to change that, the risk of hybridization can be disregarded (e.g., by only keeping females of the two species). Otherwise, I guess mixing crested and banded would be a fairly effecient way to get booted from the crested stud book. It's maintained by Taronga Zoo. The Fiji banded is more common in captivity overall and less threatened in the wild; getting surplus animals of that species would likely be easier.
Fiji crested and banded are allospecies. Mixing them would potentially risk cross-species disease, hybridization and aggression. A general rule is to never mix closely related species. However, if breeding of Fiji crested still is on hold in Australia and there are no plans to change that, the risk of hybridization can be disregarded (e.g., by only keeping females of the two species). Otherwise, I guess mixing crested and banded would be a fairly effecient way to get booted from the crested stud book. It's maintained by Taronga Zoo. The Fiji banded is more common in captivity overall and less threatened in the wild; getting surplus animals of that species would likely be easier.
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To proof our point: there exist hybrids between B. fasciatus and B. bulabula in Europe. Reason: unintentional mixing of different species based on inadequate knowledge of Fijin iguana evolution and speciation. It was only discovered when genetics research was done.