Here is the deal these are not True Black Pearls. There are only 3 left (1 in the UK, 2 in the USA) that I know of that are from the original line of Black Pearl that were not out crossed. there may be more floating around. but I haven't heard of any. They Originally came from a guy named Konrad from living art geckos. ( if you look up Black Pearl you can find Info on here) The were sold to The Urban Gecko he sold all the visual females and held back the male. The male died and so did the project with the urban gecko. JMG got a female and crossed it to their charcoal line. (more info on that latter) Paul Allen also got a girl. and eventually got a male from JMG that was a Black Pearl X Charcoal.
I bought the Project from Paul Allen when he got out earlier this year. here is a video that i did on the geckos shortly after I got them.
[video=youtube;PI7P7Zt1odw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI7P7Zt1odw&feature=g-upl[/video]
Here is a piece I wrote back in July
The Curse of the Black Pearl...........................
"Ok guys I said that I would keep you updated on all of the updates on this project, good or bad. . To make this easier to under stand I am going to call all of the geckos from this project “D Project” because they are no longer black pearls in my eyes, because of the out crossing that was done with the charcoal line (From JMG). The results from my breedings will prove why the renaming will have to be done.
So I have some good news and some bad news on the project. The good news is first. The dark geckos can be reproduced. Some are much darker then others and some lighten up and some do stay darker. After talking to Jeff Jr from JMG, he says that his Charcoal line is line bred. So to see what is going on with the true black pearl you have to know how the charcoal line actually works because that could change your results. There are only 3 female true black pearls left in the world (that I know of). All others that claim black pearl are crosses of one way or another, most are crossed into charcoal (especially in the USA)
This year I will be selecting out the darkest geckos that I produce to breed back to each other. In hopes of line breeding for the darkest ones. It is still up in the air as of now how it works but as of now I will say it’s a line bred thing.
But now there is a catch …….
Being a huge believer in needing to know the exact genetics of every animal that I am working with. I had to test out the original male that was used to make all of the “D project” geckos that I have that came from Paul Allen.
The Original Male Black Pearl X Charcoal that was the father to all of the “D Project” geckos originally came from JMG. Knowing this I talked to Jeff and asked if there was any poss hets floating in it. He informed me that the original Charcoal male that they used to cross to their Black Pearl female was actually proven to be het Tremper. This made my male and father to all of my “D project” geckos 50% het Tremper. So I was like well I will have to prove him out to make sure he is or isn’t so at least I will know. And from there I could tell what his babies might have in them.
So with a little disappointment, that the waters could have been a little muddy to start, I had to get to the test breeding. The fact that I got the project so late in the season kind of limited me to what I had left that I could breed to the male. This actually helped me, a huge thank you to the gecko gods. I just so happened to have a Mack Raptor W/Y enigma female laying around. (I know sucks to have that kinda thing just laying around) but any way. I paired the Mack Raptor W/Y enigma female to the Black Pearl X Charcoal original Male from JMG. This was a kill two birds with one stone breeding. Not only would it prove tremper albino but it would prove if the eclipse gene was in there as well. Breeding happened and eggs were laid, the incubation started and hatching date was approaching on the first clutch.
The first clutched hatched and I hatched out 1 tremper and 1 normal. Well now I know the Male is het Tremper I told my self. So I was kind disappointed. This makes the project even tougher now because I have to “breed the tremper” out. This is something that I am used to doing these days. Feel like Tremper is in every thing.
A few weeks went by and this time of the year my gecko room is full of babies and the daily cleaning seems to take over my life. It is like a never ending job just putting babies away. So putting babies away one morning I saw that clutch 2 had hatched and there are two Black Holes staring back at me. I was like what the …….and checked what eggs they were from and they were from the Mack raptor w/y X Black Pearl x Charcoal. So the male now is not only het Tremper but also het Eclipse. I took a look at the first clutch more closely and sure enough the babies were jungle/patternless stripe so it was making a lot more sense now that the eclipse trait was in there. If it wasn’t the babies should have been more banded.
here are the babies from the first clutch
This should be 2 lessons to every one. First the importance of test breeding out geckos that are used in projects especially ones that are the founding members of a project and two it show how muddy the waters are out there. So now I think that the Black Pearl is cursed. hahahah well not really but it will take much longer to get the morph back to the way it should be and that is PURE. So next year I will be starting from scratch with my lone black pearl female. To try to preserve the real Black Pearl.
So what will happen to all the “D project” geckos? well…… I will continue to work on the dark geckos with them but it will always be a possibility that they are poss het for tremper or eclipse or both. So the line has its limitations unfortunately. So a little disappointing but it is what I have to work with so I will do what I can with what I have. as always keep you updated on the progress of the “D Project”
I have hatched out Patternless from the project as well i think they are very cool looking here is a pic
From my breedings my Original Black Pearl female is het Patty.
some of the babies lighten up a bit but alot of the geckos from this project have a weird look about them. here are a few more pictures of some different ones. and different ages.
The first two i posted are the darkest i have Hatched and i hope they stay the darkest they are about 2 months old and about 15 grams.
the weird part is the warmer they are the darker they are you would think it is the other way around but it is not.
the goals of the project are making them darker and cleaning them up a bit genetically as well. should be a fun thing to mess with for a few years.
I bought the Project from Paul Allen when he got out earlier this year. here is a video that i did on the geckos shortly after I got them.
[video=youtube;PI7P7Zt1odw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI7P7Zt1odw&feature=g-upl[/video]
Here is a piece I wrote back in July
The Curse of the Black Pearl...........................
"Ok guys I said that I would keep you updated on all of the updates on this project, good or bad. . To make this easier to under stand I am going to call all of the geckos from this project “D Project” because they are no longer black pearls in my eyes, because of the out crossing that was done with the charcoal line (From JMG). The results from my breedings will prove why the renaming will have to be done.
So I have some good news and some bad news on the project. The good news is first. The dark geckos can be reproduced. Some are much darker then others and some lighten up and some do stay darker. After talking to Jeff Jr from JMG, he says that his Charcoal line is line bred. So to see what is going on with the true black pearl you have to know how the charcoal line actually works because that could change your results. There are only 3 female true black pearls left in the world (that I know of). All others that claim black pearl are crosses of one way or another, most are crossed into charcoal (especially in the USA)
This year I will be selecting out the darkest geckos that I produce to breed back to each other. In hopes of line breeding for the darkest ones. It is still up in the air as of now how it works but as of now I will say it’s a line bred thing.
But now there is a catch …….
Being a huge believer in needing to know the exact genetics of every animal that I am working with. I had to test out the original male that was used to make all of the “D project” geckos that I have that came from Paul Allen.
The Original Male Black Pearl X Charcoal that was the father to all of the “D Project” geckos originally came from JMG. Knowing this I talked to Jeff and asked if there was any poss hets floating in it. He informed me that the original Charcoal male that they used to cross to their Black Pearl female was actually proven to be het Tremper. This made my male and father to all of my “D project” geckos 50% het Tremper. So I was like well I will have to prove him out to make sure he is or isn’t so at least I will know. And from there I could tell what his babies might have in them.
So with a little disappointment, that the waters could have been a little muddy to start, I had to get to the test breeding. The fact that I got the project so late in the season kind of limited me to what I had left that I could breed to the male. This actually helped me, a huge thank you to the gecko gods. I just so happened to have a Mack Raptor W/Y enigma female laying around. (I know sucks to have that kinda thing just laying around) but any way. I paired the Mack Raptor W/Y enigma female to the Black Pearl X Charcoal original Male from JMG. This was a kill two birds with one stone breeding. Not only would it prove tremper albino but it would prove if the eclipse gene was in there as well. Breeding happened and eggs were laid, the incubation started and hatching date was approaching on the first clutch.
The first clutched hatched and I hatched out 1 tremper and 1 normal. Well now I know the Male is het Tremper I told my self. So I was kind disappointed. This makes the project even tougher now because I have to “breed the tremper” out. This is something that I am used to doing these days. Feel like Tremper is in every thing.
A few weeks went by and this time of the year my gecko room is full of babies and the daily cleaning seems to take over my life. It is like a never ending job just putting babies away. So putting babies away one morning I saw that clutch 2 had hatched and there are two Black Holes staring back at me. I was like what the …….and checked what eggs they were from and they were from the Mack raptor w/y X Black Pearl x Charcoal. So the male now is not only het Tremper but also het Eclipse. I took a look at the first clutch more closely and sure enough the babies were jungle/patternless stripe so it was making a lot more sense now that the eclipse trait was in there. If it wasn’t the babies should have been more banded.
here are the babies from the first clutch
This should be 2 lessons to every one. First the importance of test breeding out geckos that are used in projects especially ones that are the founding members of a project and two it show how muddy the waters are out there. So now I think that the Black Pearl is cursed. hahahah well not really but it will take much longer to get the morph back to the way it should be and that is PURE. So next year I will be starting from scratch with my lone black pearl female. To try to preserve the real Black Pearl.
So what will happen to all the “D project” geckos? well…… I will continue to work on the dark geckos with them but it will always be a possibility that they are poss het for tremper or eclipse or both. So the line has its limitations unfortunately. So a little disappointing but it is what I have to work with so I will do what I can with what I have. as always keep you updated on the progress of the “D Project”
I have hatched out Patternless from the project as well i think they are very cool looking here is a pic
From my breedings my Original Black Pearl female is het Patty.
some of the babies lighten up a bit but alot of the geckos from this project have a weird look about them. here are a few more pictures of some different ones. and different ages.
The first two i posted are the darkest i have Hatched and i hope they stay the darkest they are about 2 months old and about 15 grams.
the weird part is the warmer they are the darker they are you would think it is the other way around but it is not.
the goals of the project are making them darker and cleaning them up a bit genetically as well. should be a fun thing to mess with for a few years.
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They look great!