Sambava Chameleons

Sambava is a panther chameleon (Furcifer pardalis) locale from the north-east coast of Madagascar, named for the town of Sambava in the Sava region. This name is a claim about ancestry instead of a gene because it records where the wild ancestors of a line were collected. Keepers choose it for the warm end of the panther palette. This includes green, yellow, orange and deep red in the areas where other locales run to blue.

Appearance

When they are calm, most of an adult male is green with dark bars in maroon, burgundy or a red so deep it reads as black. White lips match the white stripe along the flank. He turns orange and yellow across the body with the bars flushing a brighter red when fired up.

Females show no locale colour. Every panther female stays in the pinks, peaches, browns and tans, so you cannot tell a female's locale by eye. Young animals are dull too. Males only take on adult colour as they approach maturity. The Sambava name on a female or a juvenile therefore rests on its parents.

Genetics

As a locale, Sambava has no super form, no het and no inheritance mode. If you breed a Sambava to a Sambava, the offspring stay Sambava. The offspring are a locale cross if you introduce another locale, and these cannot be bred back out. Since females show nothing of their locale, a cross that is not declared can pass into a line sold as pure without being seen. Breeders keep locales apart and state any mix during sales for this reason. You should ask for the lineage of the locale and how far back both parents are recorded.

Sambava is a staple of the panther trade and has a long history in captive breeding. Wild panther populations are genetically distinct from one another. In 2015, a study by Grbic and colleagues in Molecular Ecology found strong genetic structure across the range of the species. This study found that male colour tracks lineage and suggested several lineages may be separate species.