Pedigree Terms and Lineage Documentation

Scope and authority

This Standard establishes the vocabulary by which The Reptile Club records and reports lineage. Its definitions govern the language printed on the Certificate of Pedigree, the data the Registry holds for each registered animal, and the meaning of every term used in subsequent Standards published by the Club.

The authority for these definitions rests with The Reptile Club, as the publishing body of the Registry. The Standard does not regulate husbandry, breeding ethics, or commercial practice; it governs only the words by which lineage is recorded.

Where a term defined here conflicts with informal usage in the wider hobby, the definition given in this Standard is the one that applies to all Registry records and to all documents issued under the Reptile Club seal.

Definitions

The following terms have the meanings given below for all purposes of the Registry.

Registered animal

An individual reptile whose Certificate of Pedigree has been issued by the Registry and to which a Reptile Club registration code has been assigned. The Registry does not record information about animals that have not been registered, except as those animals appear by name on a registered animal's certificate.

Registration code

The unique identifier carried by every registered animal, taking the form RC followed by a hyphen and an eight-character alphanumeric body. The registration code is the public handle by which a registered animal is referenced anywhere on the Registry, on its certificate, and in the lineage records of its descendants.

Certificate of Pedigree

The document issued by the Registry on registration of an animal, available in printed form and at the registered animal's permanent page on reptileclub.com. The certificate states the registered animal's identity, the producer under whom it was registered, the parents on file, and the date of issue.

Producer

The breeder under whom a registered animal is recorded. The producer is the verified identity printed on the certificate as the animal's breeder of record. Once attached to a registration, the producer cannot be reassigned to a different identity, though a registration issued without a producer may later have one attached through the procedure described below.

Keeper of record

The party in whose care the registered animal is presently held, as reflected in the Registry. The keeper of record changes through the transfer procedure, without alteration of the producer or the lineage on file.

Sire and Dam

The male and female parents, respectively, of a registered animal. On the certificate, each parent slot points to a registered animal by registration code or remains empty.

Lineage

The connected record of descent that links a registered animal to its registered ancestors through chains of parent references. Lineage on the Registry is held as a graph rather than as a fixed-depth list: each registered animal carries pointers to its parents, and ancestry is read by following those pointers from generation to generation.

Unregistered parent slot

A sire or dam slot on a certificate that does not point to a registered animal. The Registry treats such a slot as structurally absent and does not record information about the unregistered parent. The certificate displays the slot as unregistered without naming any party.

The Certificate of Pedigree

A Certificate of Pedigree is the Registry's published record of a single registered animal, identified by its registration code. The certificate makes the following assertions, and only the following assertions.

It asserts that an animal of the species and sex stated was registered with the Reptile Club on the date stated, under the producer named on the certificate, and that the registration code printed on the document is the unique identifier the Registry has assigned to that animal. It asserts that the parents shown are the parents on file with the Registry at the time the certificate is consulted. It asserts that the certificate page displayed at reptileclub.com under the printed code is the current authoritative version of the record.

The certificate does not assert anything about the animal's morph beyond what the producer recorded at registration, nor anything about the animal's health, value, or fitness for any particular purpose. It does not assert that the animal currently lives, nor that any party named on it remains the keeper of record. These matters lie outside the recording function of the Registry.

The certificate displays the current state of every field the Registry records for the animal. Where a field has been amended, the audit log attached to the certificate carries the prior value and the date the amendment was made, so that the present record and its history are both visible.

Lineage as a graph

Each Certificate of Pedigree carries two parent slots, the sire and the dam. Each slot is either a reference to another registered animal, given by registration code, or empty. The Registry does not record named ancestors who are not themselves registered, and it does not record claims of ancestry that fall outside this two-slot structure.

The pedigree of any registered animal is read by following the parent references from the focal animal outward. Each registered ancestor encountered along the way carries its own parent references, and the chain continues until a slot is empty or until every line has terminated in an unregistered slot. The Registry imposes no fixed depth on this traversal; an animal whose ancestors are all registered carries lineage as deep as the Registry's records of those ancestors permit.

Because lineage is held as connected references rather than as a frozen list, the depth of any pedigree may grow over time. When a previously unregistered parent becomes registered, the producer of any descendant may complete the empty parent slot on that descendant's certificate by entering the new registration code. Subsequent reads of the descendant's certificate will display the newly available ancestry. No reissue of the descendant's certificate is required.

Where a parent slot is empty, the certificate displays it as unregistered. The Registry does not record the names of unregistered parents and does not represent them as ancestors of the focal animal. Empty slots are not represented as a defect in the pedigree but as the present limit of the Registry's record.

Producer attribution

Every registration is recorded under one of three attribution states.

Self-issued

The party who issued the registration is the producer. The producer's verified identity is printed on the certificate. This is the attribution state of registrations issued by the producer themselves through the HatchLog app.

Attributed

The registration was issued by a party who is not the producer, and the producer subsequently confirmed the attribution through the Registry's attribution-request procedure. The producer's verified identity is printed on the certificate. The attributed state is reached only by the producer's own approval.

Unattributed

No producer claim has been verified. The certificate is issued without a producer name, and the producer field is rendered as a single dash. The certificate is otherwise complete. An unattributed registration may be upgraded to attributed at a later date when the producer joins the Registry and approves the attribution.

The transition from unattributed to attributed is the only change of attribution state that the Registry permits, and it requires the producer's own approval. The transition from self-issued or attributed to any other state is not permitted. A registration once attributed to a producer remains so on the Registry's permanent record.

The Registry does not record claims of producer attribution made by parties other than the producer. The free-text "produced by" note that a keeper may attach to a private record in the HatchLog app is a private breeder note and is not printed on the certificate.

What changes after issue

The Registry records changes to a registered animal's record by category. Some fields are locked at issue and cannot be amended. Others are amendable by the keeper of record at any time. The producer retains a thirty-day window in which any field on the registration may be corrected.

Locked at issue. The species, hatch date, producer, and registration code are locked at the moment of issue and cannot be amended thereafter. These fields define the registration and are not subject to change.

Lineage. The sire and dam slots follow a separate rule. An empty parent slot may be completed at any time by the producer, by entering the registration code of a registered parent. Once a slot is filled, it is locked and cannot be replaced. The producer may fill empty slots indefinitely; the locking of a filled slot is permanent. Where a proposed parent is itself a registered animal owned by another party, the Registry requires the present keeper of that parent to confirm the link before the reference is recorded.

Amendable by the keeper. The keeper of record may amend the animal's name, morph designation, sex, and photograph at any time. Morph amendment is the means by which heterozygous designations are refined as offspring confirm or disprove them; sex amendment accommodates animals sold unsexed or whose sex was misidentified at registration.

The producer's correction window. For thirty days after issue, the producer may correct any field on the registration, including filled parent slots, the animal's name, morph, sex, and photograph. After thirty days, the producer's correction window closes. The keeper-amendable fields remain amendable by the keeper; filled parent slots become permanent.

The audit log. Every amendment to a registration, by producer or keeper, is recorded in an audit log attached to the certificate. The audit log displays the date of each change, the field affected, and the prior value. No amendment to a registered animal's record is made without an audit log entry.

Transfers

A transfer is a change of keeper. The producer, the lineage on file, and the registration code are unaffected by transfer. Only the keeper of record changes.

The Registry holds the chain of transfers as a sequence of dated events on the registered animal's record. The chain is part of the animal's permanent history.

Revisions

This Standard is maintained as a living document. The Club may issue a new version when the language of the Registry requires clarification, when new terms enter the Club's vocabulary, or when an ambiguity in a prior issue is identified.

Each new issue is identified by its adoption date and supersedes the prior issue for all registrations made after that date. Registrations made under a prior issue retain their original meaning; the Registry interprets older records by the issue in force at the time of their registration.

Editorial enquiries and proposed corrections may be addressed to registry@reptileclub.com.