Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It was previously supposed some years back that even if it were possable to produce hybrids the offspring would be infertile, or unable to reproduce. We now know that not to be the case. My question for hybriders is... what are your experiances with sterility in hybrids? I actually haven't heard of a single case of it. I guess we would mostly hear of the sucesses, I was inspired to ask based on the previous post where the pairing resulted in no fertilization and no eggs. I was curious to see now that we are into several generations, maybe H Dean or someone who really knows could enlighten us. Sorry about that word hybriders, I think the word is a hybrid!

Upscale....one is a boa, the other a python, so as far as I know that's an impossible pairing, the reason she did not even produce infetile eggs, she was in a non reproductive state at the time of breeding.

Frank Roberts

Thanks. It was just that your post was what got me to thinking about the whole sterility thing with hybrids of the possable kind. I think one term to come out of these experiments is "hybrid vigor", which is a good thing. I guess it is the opposite extreme of inbreeding, which seems to have far more serious side effects than hybridizing, which seems to produce healthy, viable examples. Exactly opposite of what we were lead to believe by the purists who shun the idea of it.

I can't give you any cases of infertility but what I can do is suggest a plausable reason. This reason is basically that the amount of divergent evolution that has effected the animals in question have yet to formulate to any true postzygotic barriers.
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Adam
Hybrid Breeders Association

They use to teach that it was geneticall impossible for a domestic cow and an american bison to produce a fertile bull offspring.

Fortunately a montana rancher never went to college.

I love beefalo