Bob Mailloux Memorial
We are deeply saddened by the news of Bob Mailloux’s passing on August 26, 2023. Gary Bagnall reflected on their longtime friendship:
“The one constant as you get older is that you lose your older friends. This past week, we lost a true icon and friend in the reptile trade, Bob Mailloux. I have personally known Bob for over 40 years, and I can honestly say he was “one of the good ones”.
In the early dawning of “Herpeticulture”, Bob teamed up with Philippe de Vosjoli to create Sandfire Ranch, which was a breeding farm for rare lizards and frogs but mostly bearded dragons. Bob seemed to run the bearded dragon side while Phillippe took to the rare geckos, with both of them raising rare frogs and newts. Sandfire Ranch was the first lizard breeding farm to popularize the bearded dragon, taking it from an obscure, hard-to-find lizard to a common pet that is found in most pet shops today.
Bob also selectively bred bearded dragons for their red color, hence the “Sandfire” color phase. In the 1970s, the Green Iguana was the most common pet lizard sold, with 1 million imported from Central and South America during the height of their popularity. In the 1980s, the bearded dragon slowly overtook the green iguana in popularity with the amazing statistic of over 300,000 bred in captivity, none imported from Australia! We all have Bob to thank for this, as he was the nucleus who started the path of the pet bearded dragon. Bob had a quite calm about him, always smiling, and usually with beer in hand. All of us in the reptile trade owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
God speed my friend. He was one of the good ones.”
We also loved the words from his business partner Philippe de Vosjoli:
“My dear and close friend, Bob Mailloux, one of the pioneers of US Herpetoculture and one of the nicest human beings you could ever meet, has passed away. Without Bob I would never have achieved whatever success I’ve had in this life. He helped me in so many ways when I arrived in California in 1985 with 500.00 in my pocket, first by offering me a paid partnership to develop breeding of various amphibian and reptile species. Bob was the first to breed bearded dragons on a commercial scale, first with Rankin’s and barbatus and later with the famous Sandfire lines which resulted in Inland bearded dragon being among the most popular lizards in the world. He was the first to commercially breed White’s treefrogs and the originator of the various morphotypes (honey blue eyed, snowflake and more). Together we collaborated in many of the first frog captive breedings, including the popular Chacoan horned frog, Joazeiro horned frog, horned frog hybrids, Kassina leonardi, Pseudobufo asper, Odorrana ishikawae, Chilean widemouth frog (Calyptocephalus gayi), Cyclorana australis and many more. Bob was nervous about speaking to an audience so I would be the one presenting the results of our work at various conferences, even though Bob deserved much of the credit. Together we coauthored many papers and booklets. I presented our work on breeding frogs at the 1995 International Herpetological Symposium for which I as presenter received the Lazlo award (Bob as co-author of the paper should have been acknowledged).
