Witblits bearded dragons About Us

Hi, my name is Jacques, and I heartly welcome you to my website. I am a veterinarian by career but a reptile breeder by passion. I have been keeping reptiles since the age of 7 and have bred them for the past 12 years. I have been working exclusively with bearded dragons, Pogona vitticeps, for the past 7 years and in late 2008 discovered that somewhere deep in the genes of my bearded dragons a very special trait had lurked for some time and have now decided to make an appearance… I introduce to you Witblits dragons! TRUE patternless bearded dragons.

Firstly let me tell you a bit about the bearded dragons in South Africa. The reptile industry in SA is tiny compared to the USA and Europe! Bearded dragons are a relatively ‘new’ species and the first babies were only available about 15 years ago. Bearded dragons are considered invasive in SA and are thus illegal to keep in certain provinces. They are also almost impossible to import from other countries. Thus our variety of dragons are limited. The more ‘exotic’ morphs like leatherbacks, hypos, leucistics, translucents etc are very rare in SA. 99% of all dragons in SA are normal ‘wild-type’ dragons, with typical pattern and colour and only few highlights of orange and yellow. This is the type of dragons I started off with 7 years ago and I still breed them today. I sell these mostly as pet bearded dragons. We regard ourselves as one of the top breeders in South Africa. We take much pride in what we do! We only sell healthy dragons to competent owners.

I developed a liking for beardies with colour and purchased ‘good looking’ breeding animals from private breeders, collectors and pet shops. Pretty soon I had a ’yellow line’ and a ‘light line’ going. These were inspired by the high yellow morphs (like Citrus) and Leucistic that I saw in Europe and America. Our dragons are still far from that however... I have always hoped (as I think all reptile breeders do) to create or breed something really unique.

And then it happened...

In November 2008 we hatched the frist patternless bearded dragons. They looked somewhat ‘strange’ in appearance. They were completely patternless and the first one out was almost paper white in colour.

We focused our attention to the parents of these babies. Both the male and female was from our ‘light line’. This pairing was done by Pierre Kotze. We strongly suspect that the male and female were from the same parents, but it is not for sure since the owner did not keep accurate records. We mated her with the same male later in the season and they produced more patternless babies. We hatched a constant ratio of 25% witblits from both cluthes. This makes it quite likely that this trait could be simple recessive and that both parents are likely heterozygous for witblits.

Currently we are focusing on the witblits trait and breed ‘normal’ dragons in small quantity only. There is still a great deal to learn about this gene and we will try to figure it out. We are however giving other breeders the opportunity to do so as well. We have decided to sell babies quite early on in this project. We have not multiplied the morph to an extent that we can flood the market. This gives breeders the chance to buy witblits dragons and still breed them and sell them for a fair price and so get a good return on their investment.

Who knows what may come from this morph… Their potential is endless!

Our future projects will be:

1) blizzard white patternless dragons

2) leatherback witblits dragons

3) super orange and red patternless dragons

4) solid black bearded dragons

I hope that one day you may also own one of these amazing animals!

Cheers

We are currently selling our dragons only to breeders outside of South Africa. Yes, I ship them to almost anywhere! We use only the best in reptile shipping.

Witblits Dragons is proudly South African!

I will update this website as frequently as possible.

For more info on these dragons visit our FAQ section.