Caramel

History

In 2003 I acquired several pairs of Caramel Coastals from a breeder who had hatched them from normal appearing Coastal parents. These babies were red in colour with no noticeable black markings at all, only very fine brown edging to some of the pattern. I was quite confident that the trait would be reproducible as the babies looked different to "normal" reds babies that are sometimes found in Coastal clutches.

In 2006 I bred a male Coastal Jaguar Carpet to a female Caramel. I hatched some normal looking Jaguars and Coastals as well as a Caramel Jaguar and caramel babies from that pairing. So it seems that the trait was co-dominant and I had hatched a double co-dom Caramel Jaguar! In 2007 I tried the same pairing again along with a second pairing, a male Caramel to a female Coastal Jaguar. Both clutches contained Caramel Jaguars and Caramels  as well as normal Jaguars and Coastals.

I also bred Caramel to Caramel for the first time in 2007. The outcome from 19 eggs from this clutch was also consistent with it being a co-dominant trait, there were 10 Caramels, 5 normals and 4 "Super" Caramels. The supers were even brighter than their Caramel clutch mates and completely lacked any dark scales or markings altogether.

In 2009 I bred a male super Caramel to a normal coastal and hatching all caramel babies, finally proving the mutation to be co-dominant.