Posted by:
zach_whitman
at Thu Aug 9 12:09:07 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by zach_whitman ]
I dont know what kind of sample size we are talking about but to be blunt, I do not believe this claim.
As other posters have said this flies in the face of SOOOOO much research and evidence. THis is not one of those areas where you can say, "oh it just hasn't been studied enough". It has. Do you know how many people have bred how many millions of colubrids in the past 40 years? How many people have even made their living off of it? And don't you think that since nearly all turtles, crocodillians, and some geckos are temperature sex dependent (TSD) that these people might have been curious about it?
Sex determination in snakes is chromosomal, just like in people. Well not just like in people... in people males have two chromosomes that don't match XY while females are homogametic XX. In snakes its the reverse, the males are XX or (I think maybe they call it ZZ) and the females have mismatched chromosomes. These are easy phenomena to check with modern imaging techniques you can litterally see the chromosomes, we are not talking about terribly mysterious science.
If other peoples larger scale research wasn't enough, I personally have incubated snakes at all kinds of different temps and gotten totally random results, trust me I have looked for patterns. I have gotten entire clutches of males and entire clutches of females from every temperature.
Like I said I don't know anything about this claim but I am more than skeptical. I checked the pit forum and didn't see a post, but I would love some more information.
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Whoa whoa - zach_whitman, Thu Aug 9 12:09:07 2007