Posted by:
FR
at Mon Jul 4 12:58:48 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
Hmmmmmmmmmm This is such an old arguement, its kinda like Chevys and Fords and Toyotas and Nissans. They are pure but what if you put a ford drivetrain in a Chevy, it then becomes a hybrid. What about if you put a ford clutch in a chevy, what is it now? All in all, these things come with a label from the factory.
Why I bring this up is simple, reptiles do not have a set factory that builds snakes to specs. Nature builds animals to suit, As in custom. To suit what you ask, to suit changing nature.
Again I bring that up to help you understand, there are two basic approaches to keep a wild snake successful, first the specs, genetics, then equally important, selection. These work hand in hand to keep a species a species. Or is that wrong too, of course it is, all animals are in a constant state of change. They are all on their way to being something or going exstint. They never are something, they are only on their way to something.
Also consider, the specs are not genera specific or species specific or subspecies specific, they are population specific. That is each population is unique to itself.
Why I bring that up is the use of the term "pure". If your going to stick your neck out and use that term, then you surely such understand what it means. Many of you go by counties, populations do not use counties, they use both habitat and behavior restrictions to difine populations. No, not countries or states or counties, or parishes.
So you can indeed have "pure" genetic pairs in captivity, that is if they were caught in the same exact place. But there seems to be some behavioral selection going on. So maybe "pure" would only discribe a sexual pair that chose eachother in nature. And of course, you can find that too. I am not sure to many of you actually have that.
So, you can have half "pure" animals, but what you forget is the other half, selection. All populations change genetically responding to the pressures of selection. We have that too, but its different, we select for pinky feeders, rubbermaid specialists, color and pattern( how many of you keep the ugly ones?)
Also, this is about kingsnakes which are not bound to a specific tight set of color and pattern restrictions. In otherwords, kingsnakes are polymorphic, they undernormal conditions produce many colors and patterns. Yet you go by color and pattern to difine your "pure" kingsnakes. I am so very confused.
I would think of kingsnakes as being a progressive snake, that is, they are not restricted to going out of style. Their genetics allows for a realitively wide spectrum within a single clutch. I would guess the advantage of this is clear. It would insure a higher chance of success in a changing enviornment. Are any of you getting this?
While this seems hard to see, here in the states, specially in the east(relatively constant enviornment). In other areas, deserts and other countries, this is much easier to observe.
A good example is Australia, its a country of huge weather changes and huge climate changes. An example is wet and drought, much of the country commonly suffers from years of wet, followed by years of drought.
This makes it easy to see why a reptile would "shotgun" color and pattern. Its easy to see a change of apparent dominate color patterns in a very short period. For instance red ackies are a type of monitor that lives in the west. In coastal desert areas. In dry years, they are very very red to match the red sands. In wet years, the dominate color is yellow or brown, to match the growth of ground cover. Please understand, they do not change color, they change individuals. In the dry years, the ones that blend in, survive longer then the ones that don't. Same goes for the wet years, only now it requires a different color. This selection allows a dominate color and pattern to exsist, not exactly genetics. Genetics was wide, selection is not.
Did the genetics change, no. They always had the same genetics, they threw both color types and everything inbetween, its all about selection.
How this effects us is simple, our pure snakes are only pure for a moment, then because they lack what keeps them pure, selection, they quickly become captive mutts or mutations.
This was and is seen by us old fellas, only we didn't understand the reason. We would just say this, you know, I used to commonly find really nice ones(lots of red, wide bands, etc etc) here, but for some reason, they are not here anymore.
So for me, I have been watching nature for so many years and have seen these changes. I have to wonder about what and why you seem to need the word "pure" I really think its more about you, then the animals. Again ALL this is only food for thought. Which is why we have brains and a conciousness. FR
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 About "pure" and crosses and hybrids and other such Stuff - FR, Mon Jul 4 12:58:48 2005
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