Example of an old school blonde. Photo credit LAC Herps

Finding breeding stock that was truly black and white and not faded out tricolor proved extremely difficult. Many of the animals for sale had no lineage, and we were trying to avoid accidentally adding any faded tricolors that were masquerading as black and white.

The true beginning to our blonde project was Cache – previously a pet (named “Cash”) – that we saw posted on a Facebook group. To our surprise, the owner was willing to sell him to us since she was looking to downsize her geckos. She had paired “Cash” to tricolor females and produced blonde offspring.

The opportunity to purchase old animals that pushed the project in the right direction led to the purchase of Mushu (Gekkonidazed [Arcas x Akeemah] circa 2009), Otis (Mama T’s [Quidditch x Coconut] circa 2014), and Pizza (Gorgeous Geckos circa 2012). Each of these animals was over 10 years old but held something that I thought was special; the ability to “go back in time” to “revive” the blonde. I figured that by working from the ground up with some of the original animals, I had the best chance of reviving and then refining the “blonde”.

The goal for the Blonde Revival Project is to bring back and improve upon largely bred away from phenotypes; a bi-color animal with white fringed crests, a dark head stamp, dark black base color, blocky harlequin dorsum, and thick white lateral pattern.

Our blonde project does not have axanthic or Lilly white genetics.