>> "I have my doubts as to whether these will be fertile"

>>

>>Why do you feel this way?

>>I cannot think of any hybrid snakes that have proven to be infertile. NERD even proved that a Carpet X Macklots was



First of all it is difficult to prove that they are infertile. You never know what combination will or will nor work. Having said that, I don't know of anyone who bred a amazon x emerald tree boa hybrid to anything, same for blood x royal. Has anyone bredd carpondros to anything? etc. I'm not really into hybrids so I am not current on what has been done.

Anyway, while Liasis and Morelia are a different genus, they are certainly far more closely related to each other than to Aspidites. In fact Aspidites are a really different group, seen as the most ancient python group, no heat pits and other things. The more removed, the smaller the chance of a hybrid and certainly a fertile hybrid. To be fertile the hybrid needs to be able to produce a whole complement of chromosomes to combine with the chromosomes of the snake it is mated to. And the more dissimilar the chromosomes of the parents of the hybrid are, the less chance there is of that.

All the fertile crosses I know of are realtively closely related. But maybe you have examples of really unrelated species?

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