The home of Bearded Dragons - Pogona Vitticeps
General Information | Leatherback & Smoothies Dragons
What is a leatherback bearded dragon?
Reduction of tubercles and enhanced colours
Leatherback bearded dragons are like normal bearded dragons morphs, but have an absence or reduction of the tubercles (rough scales) on the dragons back which give them a leathery like appearance. They are relatively expensive in the market because there are simply not many and usually the colours of a leatherback is sometimes greater than of a normal. This is due to the reduced tubercles, which make the colours show through better and is a line of bearded dragons I have come to love and specialise in.
The reduction of scales (tubercles) is consistent throughout the back of the leatherback and you don't get partial because of the co-dominant trait. Essentially, you either have a leatherback or you dont! There are varying qualities which is demonatrated later on.
Red Leatherback Bearded Dragon
The creation of the leatherbacks is not from generation of inbreeding, but was from luck as a breeder, Allesandro from italy noticed a dragon that look different in his stock and bred it. The line eventually became what is known today as the Italian Leatherback. The genes were found to be Co-dominant where the offspring will result in approximately 1/2 regular scaled and 1/2 leatherback. This line of leatherbacks is visual so a leatherback is either a leatherback or is not. They are the "visual" hets/heterozygous for a homozygous superform known as the silkbacks.
Another variant is known as the American Smoothie or US Smoothie, this started as a completely separate linage to the italian counterpart and visually the same. However, I would say that earlier italian leatherback's are visual more stunning than smoothies. Today the term smoothies are less used and leatherback is more widely accepted.
A leatherback bearded dragon do not need any additional care when compared to a normal dragon. They eat, live the same and have habits as a regular dragon, but just have less scales.
Quality of a leatherback bearded dragon? There are different qualities / grades in leatherbacks, some are less smooth while others can be micro scaled. Usually you can tell the quality by looking at the side of the body near the side spikes. High quality leatherbacks will continue to have micro scales along this area, while others will appear to have a mixture of small and normal sized scales. Higher quality leatherbacks will also have a reduction in lateral spikes too.
A normal bearded dragon
Lower grade leatherback dragon
Micro scaled leatherback dragon
There are other criteria which can govern the quality of your dragon, that includes colour intensity as well as other traits such as hypo and translucent.
There has lately been talk of a recessive (non visual) version of the leatherback as I believe breeders in America US have successfully proven this. These dragons just simply carry the recessive variant gene. I will post more information on this as well as a break down of the genetic variations (type of siblings) from breeding leatherbacks at a later date.
As with all the various available bearded dragon morphs, the traits can be bred together so you can in theory get high red hypo translucent silkback/leatherback bearded dragon. They are available, but very rare and extremely expensive. I have heard that one had been sold for over £2500.
Breeding | Colour Morphs | Leatherbacks | Silkbacks | Translucents | Hypos | Genetics
