The History of German Giants

History of the German Giant.

Species p. vitticeps, also called Inland bearded dragons because they come from the interior of Australia, are found in the Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory Areas of that country. The ones from the further west area of the Northern Territory are longer, larger overall and heavier bodied that those found in the others areas with the ones in north-western Queensland being the smallest.

The majority of bearded dragons in other counties had come from the Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia areas through Tasmania.

A large group of the bigger boned p. vitticeps was brought to Papua, New Guinea from the north west area of the Northern Territory (Papua New Guinea is Northeast of Australia and closest to this area). From there they made their way to Indonesia (Islands that were commonwealths of Europe), the Netherlands and finally ended up in Germany.

The Germans at that time were one of the leading areas of the world in herpetology outside of Australia. Recognizing they had a unique line of bearded dragons, but still vitticeps, they selectively bred those larger dragons to keep that size and heartiness in them.

They are called German Giants, but the Germans did not make them, they occurred in nature. But we do have the Germans to thank for preserving that line and their careful breeding of them. They take inbreeding very seriously and avoid it in their reptiles, preferring more to seek out health and vitality than colors. They had an advantage also, in that there was a good size gene pool to work with to preserve those good qualities and traits.

I have talked to one of the people that received several of these large boned dragons and one of the females he got, a large dull brown female, never laid eggs under the count of in the 40's and had clutches in the 50-60's.

Kevin Dunne, of Dragons Den, a several years ago had a large female that laid eggs in the 60's also, I think it was 68. I suspect (do not know) that female probably came from this direct line also.

Below is a German Giant adult female with a 1/2 GGxpastel adult and a regular adult vitticeps, you can see the bone structure and growth difference. The smaller one is around 400 grams, the other around 500 and the GG hits 600.

Article by Cheri Smith
Copyright Cheri Smith, The Reptile Rooms ©2004
All images Copyright The Reptile Rooms ©2004 Unless otherwise noted.