Yes, they have to change the definition of what a species is...up until now, a species is defined as an organism that can reproduce in order to make more viable offspring of its own kind. Clearly, we have seen this disproven, especially in coloubrids, among other animals. There has been talk now of revising this definition to organisms who reproduce in NATURE to create viable offspring. All of these hybrids have been performed in a "lab" situation. Under no circumstances do retics and burms' ranges overlap, where they would encounter one another in the wild, nor would coastal carpet pythons x chondros, nor balls and angolans. These hybrids are not "naturally occurring", just like the "jurassic milksnake/kingsnake" mutts that are ever so popular nowadays in the coloubrid world.



Somebody posted that there is variation and cross-breeding/hybridization in wild populations, which I will not deny does occur, an example of this might be yellow rat snakes and corn snakes, or species whose ranges NATURALLY overlapp. Hoever, the crosses that we are talking about are not naturally occurring, so why do it?



It is just my opinion, but I think we should keep the hobby pure. IS there not enough ball python mutations out there, that one must hybridize to get something new? Let's let ball pythons be ball pythons, and anoglan pythons be angolan pythons. Thanks for your time..



bob

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