I agree about them not being Bells, but I sent the note because I was still interested in them as Speks. Guess I should have clarified that in my post in here, but wasn't really thinking about that part of my post, rather was still thinking about the past and how animals were so readily available. I have been looking around for Spekii too, especially since -EJ is going to keep all his.
Actually any Hingeback is considered.
Its really a shame how much they were imported. We need some people to start breeding hingebacks of all kinds. Even the forrest hingebacks they are so overly collected its insain.
Actually there are many folks out there working with the Hingebacks. Believe me, each birth is a moment of joy and new hope among us.
It's not just the Hinges, it's many species. Most of the animals in captivity are in isolated situations, where they will never be producing the valuable and needed offspring. A few folks were wise enough to create breeding colonies, when the numbers were there. Now we are scrambling to start new colonies, so not all the animals are in just a couple of sites. That gives more breathing space to allow for one colony or colonies in a certain area to be wiped out of suffer great losses thru disease, natural disasters, ect.., and still not lose the species chance for survival. Also keeps as many gene pools going as possible.
We are getting much better at sharing data on their care, as quickly as it becomes known. Thus more animals survive for more folks. Not only survive, but reproduce.
If someone wants to get into and breed the Forest type hingebacks, K. erosa and K. homeana, the key to both of them is to keep them singlely and only introduce them for breeding. They also like low light conditions.
I have kept both species and learned the hard way about not keeping them together. I even bred K. homeana and got fertile eggs. At the time I was incubating at 86F. I went to the National Breeders expo that year and an article came out about incubating K. erosa eggs and it said to never go above 84F. Reading that article just killed me. Of course when I got home and turned down the incubator it was to late.
I lost the male not to long after that and sold the female. If I had the room I would definately get back into them.
Danny