Hi Frank,



I completely agree with you are far as the hearsay goes. We all have opinions, and Rainer's is an experienced one, but without proof of some kind it is absolutely hearsay. That's all any of this is, with the exception of Thomas, that you rightly pointed out offers direct proof.



The truth is, I am predjudiced against hybrids for some long and deeply held reason (which I can't seem to pinpoint the origin of). I don't like hybrids or integrades (unless mother nature produced them-another contradiction, I know). I think that they dilute our hobby in many ways, but so do morphs. I agree that when compared to a normal wild phenotype, they are all mongrels.



I think you said it best in a different post to Doug:



"Lastly, that you or others here cannot offer any hard evidence that those animals are hybrids, doesn't make them pure either, it just leaves the issue or question, unresolved"



Unresolved is the best way to describe this convoluted mess.



Unfortunately, as I'm sure you'll agree, there is a lot of hearsay regarding many of these animals that we keep and that makes selecting a species difficult at times.



As an example, I had wanted to get into diamond pythons for many years, but with all of the co-mingling with carpets, it was tough to find lineages that were accepted as pure. I have even seen many animals from respected breeders of known lineages that I have regrettably declined because there was a lot of banding dorsally. As you know, such banding is used as one of the tell-tale signs of carpet intergradation and would be used to discount my future offspring as mutts if they carried this trait, especially since I am also known for my jungle carpets.



My experiences in my search for pure diamonds have made me even more predjudiced against intergrades/hybrids. I think the biggest problem are the dishonest individuals that pass animals off as something that they are not in order to make a buck. If we all focused our hybrid rage against them, maybe at some point hybrids would seem acceptable to someone like me, or at least not as despised. Thanks Frank.



Will

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