Dan,



I understand your thought process but having kept many examples of both animals in question I don't see the major body morphology differences you are referring to...While as adults Jungles are somewhat more stocky, I have seen plenty of IJs that were sturdy looking and "ground dwelling" in thier appearance. All the WC carpets I have ever worked with were eager feeders on rodents....do you have any wild studies recording birds as a main food item? All the papers I have seen mention rodents as the major food item found in the stomachs of wild Irian Jayas as well as "New Guineas". For that matter Chondros were more often found with rodents in thier stomachs as opposed to avian prey. The island isolation theory is a good one, but we are talking about a island that is huge, mammals are as common a food source as birds...not like a small island like Chappell, where tigers (notechis) feed almost exclusively on muttonbirds or Queimada Grande where the Bothrops sp. have evolved a highly toxic venom to kill birds since there are no mammals on the island. I don't think that any special evolutionary changes are required for a mainland animal from Australia to survive in Irian Jaya/New Guinea.



As to thier arboreal habits, the jungles I have had, like the IJ's were highly arboreal until they reached adulthood (5-6') and then spent a higher percentage of thier time on the ground. More importantly the Northwestern Carpets (at least as pure a NW carpet that's available in this country) that I have seen and worked with were identical in coloration, body shape and habits to the NG & IJ carpets, this makes sense of course as they are the subspecies that are closest to the island.



Parantage should always be meticulously recorded and offered to customers purchasing hybrids. But Carpondro is a term that in my opinion could be used accurately describe any carpet x green tree cross, as long as species/morph/locale of both parents are noted and provided.



Also as to the burtick example...again a "bateater" (thanks Tom) is...in my opinion any Burmese x Reticulate hybrid. The "dwarf" races of both species (at this time) are still bivittatus and reticulatus respecitively therefore maybe calling them "dwarf" bateaters would be the way to go, they still fall within the parameters of what a "bateater" is supposed to be. Like I said before, parantage should always be noted for hybrids, in exact percentages, but just because a Miami Phase corn (a guttata with different body morphology and adult size) is used to breed a california king, the results would still be "jungle corns" just of a different type so to speak.



All these names are merely a marketing tool anyway....as with any hybrid exact percentages and parantage should always accompany any animal that is sold or bred...this is one of the main reasons hybrids have gotten the bad rap they have...it kills me when someone is planning to breed an animal that is a mystery geneticly. These animals should not be included in projects. If hybrid breeders were to police themselves, and euthanize animals that had the appearance of a parent species (ohh I can't wait for the heat I'm going to get with that statement) the state of hybrid breeding would be better. In most cases serious hybrid people know what they have and don't backcross (another nail in the coffin of hybrids) but the people the animals are sold (especially wholesalers/pet stores/etc) to will sell the animals as what they appear to be...if it looks like a Honduran milk, well that's what it is....regardless of fact it's 25% Floridana!!!! A great example of this is Leucistic Florida Pines....if people knew how they were orignally created...and, it's not the breeders fault he was 100% accurate and honest in representing the snakes for what they were...the person who ended up with the animals later decided to increase the value of these animals from the $50 originally paid for them, to $750 and coin them Luecistic Floridas when in fact they were a Red Phase Northern x Patternless Florida heritage...oh well sorry for the rant.



Good discussion



Horridus@aol.com

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