Great question, and one much discussed on this and other forums. I'll add my 2 cents here.

Although the term "pure" connotes some sort of absolute condition or characteristic, I've observed that in herpetoculture it is a relative term having to do with the provenance of an animal. There is a chain of ownership of the animals in the ancestry of any given snake, and term "purity" is all about the reputation of the breeders of the animals in the snake's lineage.

All that I can claim with certainty is the I bought the dam from John Cherry's thayeri stock (via Don Soderberg) and the sire from Tim Gebhardt in Texas. These guys have a reputation for maintaining breeding lines of thayeri that they believe to be unadulterated by the practice of intentionally crossing different subspecies to produce "hybrids". Although I believe there is nothing intrinsically wrong with breeding "hybrid" animals, it's my personal preference that in my own collection I breed what I and others believe to be derived from strictly thayeri-to-thayeri pairings.

Admittedly, without DNA comparisons between animals in my collection with wild-caught, expertly identified thayeri, I can never be sure. I can live with that.

Just some thoughts,

Tom

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