Pied ball Burmese star

jcase

Well-Known Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 27, 2021
Messages
402
Location (City and/or State)
Pittsboro, NC
Thats gotta be fake
Upon closer inspection post coffee, the photo is real. It is probably a wildcaught or "farmed' animal, perhaps even out of the breeding program they have for rerelease.

"Mutant" animals pop up, they are not as rare as some people think, it is just CB gene pools are far more limited than wild ones, and generally they are eaten quickly in the wild as they tend to be obvious. Go look at the number of red ear slider morphs popping up in the farms. Or hell, I remember 3 incompatible lines of leopardgeckos popping up almost at the same time.

I used to get offers of all kinds of WC/Farmed mutants when I was importing. I brought in a few, but most of the time avoided them, either they were not as unique as the exporter thought, or over priced, boring, or sometimes they would try to sell an animal with a healed injury as a morph.

All kinds of wild things used to come up for offer. There were Cuora and ratsnakes that we couldnt identify (generally assumed to be farm raised hybrids), two headed turtles (ALWAYS overpriced). The ones I remember most fondly was a WHITE WHITE WHITE fly river (couldnt afford), and the albino mouhotii. I bought (and sold) the mouhotii. I keep waiting for them to pop up again, but it was a collector not a breeder that got it (this was 20 years ago). I wish I had kept it.
 
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