Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I get the feeling its the horse(the animal) being pulled by the cart(literature). When its suppose to be the other way around.

You see, these terms were made by people to help discribe something. Even scientific terms are this.

These terms never cover the "animal" They only cover small parts of the animal.

For instance, the term species, or subspecies, includes a discription, but does this discription does include the entire population? The answer is, no it doesn't. It only includes what we think that animal is at the time and in an average way. In otherwords, all populations have normal and abnormal. All populations have normal characteristics and abnormal characteristics. Whats pure is the entire population, not parts of it that fits our current thinking(which changes with the wind)

Things like albino, hypo, hyper, melinistic, etc, are NOT included in a species or subspecies discription. But they do occur in a population. Other characteristics such a band count, scale rows, etc, are most often a average, but do not include extremes. Again, all populations have extremes. Consider, when breeding reptiles, we express characteristics, we do not invent them. If they occur, means, they have occurred before. They are in the genes.

Most populations experience crosses at one time or another. Consider how long these animals have been what they are. This is normal and occurs. But is not included in our teaching. Why?

To me this aversion to crosses/hybrids/morphs, is sheer ignorance. As they are surely a far better teaching tool then two individuals of the same subspecies breeding. Heck, that should be common knowledge. You know, that like animals should breed.

But to have unlike animals breed, that is a test of our knownledge and understanding. Its a test, not a threat. It occurs both naturally and unnaturally. It occurs with and without manipulation. The offspring of these crosses/hybrids, are in most cases fertile. How can that be, considering our education? Again, a hybrid is far more interesting scientifically, then a normal population breeding. That is, unless you do not understand these animals are suppose to breed(recruit) or you simply fear what you do not understand.

What is of wonder to me is, why are people afraid to be wrong, or afraid of what they were taught was wrong, or at least not entirely right. I wonder what the heck they are thinking. I get the feeling everything man as ever done is partly right and partly wrong. Everything. So why would you believe whats written is totally right about reptiles. They are amoung the least studied and least understood of animals.

Again, try to understand, literature and our captive experiences can be very right, but its surely not all encompassing of the animal in question. That is, our understanding is only a part of these animals, not all of these animals.

So to me. The animals are all pure(not poluted by our ignorance) Wild animals are the purest of all, we have had no influence to polute them. But surely both captives of all types and wild populations and individuals emcompass far more then academia and keepers have expressed. Our discriptions are weak at best, and are only a sample of what we are seeing. I do not understand why people cannot see past the writting.

What all this means is, all literature, all captive experience is less then one page in the real book. The book is the animals. So yes, what is pure is the animals, not what the heck humans think.

To me, those who look down upon what is not normal are narrow minded and prejudiced. But then thats a common human affliction, we all have it to some degree or another. Cheers

Again, a hybrid is far more interesting scientifically, then a normal population breeding

I would venture to say that is not true. A naturally (found in the wild) occurring hybrid would be but I doubt man-made hybrids hold any real significant value in the scientific community. They (man-made hybrids) are certainly a product of the reptile business and hold more monetary value than anything else I can think of.

I think captive produced hybrids have value in showing how closely related different species are. I would have never thought a Cal king could be crossed into a corn snake, nor would I have thought that a corn snake could be crossed into a pine snake. Those crosses have been done, and show that these snakes are closely related. A corn snake's albino gene is even compatible with the Cal king's.

> To me, those who look down upon what is not normal are narrow
> minded and prejudiced. But then thats a common human affliction,
> we all have it to some degree or another. Cheers

I think it depends upon your reasoning for keeping the animal.
If you want something as close to wild caught as you can get without taking it from the wild yourself, then "purity" matters.

If you want a wonderful pet for other reasons, some of the species hybrids I've seen in the hybrid forum are gorgeous - this one being my favorite:

forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1120874,1120874

If it were for sale and I had an appropriate place for it, I would consider buying it. It's gorgeous. I probably wouldn't because I have a list of what I want (I want to build my collection slowly) and I probably should stick to that list.

I've heard it claimed that hybrids are often more vigorous than "pure", though I don't know that that is a "scientific" assesment.

But "pure" only matters if that is what the buyer wants, and if that is what the buyer wants, that's what the buyer should get if advertised as such. And I'm of the opinion that the responsibility should be on the breeder/seller to indentify that they did hybridize to get their result.

Calling a snake a "florida king" just because it looks like one when it is really a hybrid could potentially result in throwback trait offspring, for example, so known hybrids/integrades should be labeled as such.

I can't help but think that a lot of the hybridizing that goes on is not done for scientific purposes, but purely to try and create something that can be marketed for more money - like the ball python morph craze. That's fine and dandy, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a trend that dies down once it isn't as profitable anymore.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Yes, words are used to describe things. You and everyone else here uses species names to describe animals. It's the language we have. It's not a perfect language, but no language is. Yes, nature doesn't obey our language and rules, but no one has come up with a better system of identifying animals than the one we have now. The other option is to say "the long ones with no legs that kinda look like candy canes". We have to use something. Even the folks promoting hybrids and crosses are using species and sub-species names. If you want to be critical of the naming of animals, then I would love to see you create a better system.

No one I have heard is arguing that there is no variation among species and sub-species. No one has argued that natural morphs and abberants are not "pure".

There have also been alot of acusations of people being anti-cross or anti-hybrid when they are not. They are just people who say call a cross a cross and call a hybrid a hybrid. Are we going to argue for weeks about the definition of a cross and the definition of a hybrid?

I liked Rick Millspaugh's recent post that tried to differentiate between the words "pure" and "natural". I think many are really confusing these terms. Certain crosses and hybrids are natural, that is they occur in nature. But, they are not pure. If you look up "pure" in the dictionary, you find the word "unmixed". Crosses and hybrids are mixed. That's why we call them crosses and hybrids.

If you want to say "snakes is snakes" then stop using species and subspecies names and the common names that are associated with them. In fact let's get rid of all of these silly forums and just lump all snakes together into one forum. We could call everything just a "snake".

You recently referred to Diamondback X Mohave hybrids you have seen in the wild. Many of us would say, they're not pure diamondbacks, they're not pure mohaves, but they are pure diamondback/mohave hybrids. You could use the words "pure diamondback/mohave hybrid" meaning they haven't been mixed with anything else. Hybrid breeders can say they have a pure Florida King X Cal King hybrid I suppose.

I'm still of the mindset that this forum should be open to people of all opinions. I'm just explaining mine, if people don't like it they are free to ignore it, and/or politely express their own opinion. The I'm right and everyone that disagrees with me is wrong attitude is the cause of all of the wars on this forum and all other wars elsewhere in the world.

If you want to say "snakes is snakes" then stop using species and subspecies names and the common names that are associated with them. In fact let's get rid of all of these silly forums and just lump all snakes together into one forum. We could call everything just a "snake".

Hey, isn't that why the new movie coming out is simply called "Snakes on a Plane"? They didn't want to get involved in this whole debate! LOL! BTW, the sequel is called "Hybrids on a Plane" and is supposed to be much, much scarier.

Just wait until I am succesful in hybridizing my alligator lizard with a gopher snake ...
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Come on man! Now all those "Is this a lizard or a snake?" debates will start popping up!

Below we had a post that referenced a Cherry 50/50. (another whacked thread?) Most would instantly understand that to be a high contrast Desert king produced by Cherryville Farms. There is no other term that would say so much so easily. You want to produce a field guide of some sort to identify the critters on your land you have to sort them by patterns, colors or simple identifiable characteristics. That’s why we have “Yellow Rat, Black Rat”. Very simple. If that is not specific enough to suit, perhaps you would turn to a scientific paper for a description of “Lampropeltis getula californiae”. Might get confusing when you find out the striped one and the banded are called the same thing by the real smart guys. I think the hobby community is figuring it all out just fine. Misrepresented animals are always going to be a part of the hobby, if you want to play here, you have to accept it.

Eight point Whatthebuck

Did you miss the part where i said, these terms are not all inclusive.

This is the point, many people only play within the difinitions of our terms and literature. But as you clearly tried to say, the snakes do not.

You use of the term pure, is questionable as all these terms are. You say unmixed. Yet if wild snakes are pure, then them crossing is also pure. hahahahahahaha what is not pure is mades influence on them.

As we all have our own guidelings. So do I. I think crosses where you have to manipulate the snakes, that is, scent them, switch them, etc. Are not pure. I have always let them breed/cross, only if they did so on their own accord, no tricking or gimmics. But again, thats just me.

I have also said a thousand times, people are allowed to keep any kind they want(within the law) What bothers me is, when those people rag on others for doing the same. An example, someone keeps eastern kings, then rags on other kings. Something wrong with that person, they are all kings, which are snakes. They're just snakes. So why rag on what someone else wants to keep.

To add to the cross thing. I think its not about any of that, at least not for me. Its a matter of escaping boredom. For instance, I bred cal kings for 40 years. How boring would that be if they all hatched the same. You see, after a while, you simply want to go to the next step. You see, breeding kings is bloody easy, its no challange at all. Some people like a challange. So you take a different direction. Again, its very simple. Cheers

In many scientific documents, definitions often need to be defined for how they are used in the paper using them.

I think "pure" needs to be defined by anyone using the term.

If I breed a WC Redding with WC Sacramento Cal King, and I call it a "pure" Cal King, then I need to define what I mean by pure - which is in this case, all known lineage of the snakes comes from wild caught specimens classified as L.g.californiae that were not collected in integrade zones, but collected in L.g.californiae exclusive territory.

Now it is possible that the offspring, either first generation or 20 generations of selective breeding later, may not resemble any wild california kingsnake anywhere, but all lineage is traceable back to wild caught california kings. Maybe there was some recent pacific gopher snake in one (or more) of those WC cali kings, that doesn't matter to me because any of those gopher snake genes have entered the wild california kingsnake gene pool.

Now I would feel funny describing offspring of a WC hybrid as "pure" - but in that case, I have reason to know there is recent gopher snake, whereas if what I collect looks like a kingsnake - I don't have reason to suspect that they have any recent gopher snake in them.

I don't think that potential problems with a definition of pure are reason to abandon usage of the term, nor do I think any less of people (including big mama nature) who produce integrades and hybrids. But defining the term when used makes it easier for the person buying or trading for the snake to understand what it is they are getting.

I'm contemplating buying a young lavender holbrooki. Is that a morph that came from a WC holbrooki? I don't know, but even if it is, the person I might be buying it from has already told me they can't provide a history of the snake back to WC, but for $50 who cares - so it would probably be improper for me to call it "pure" because I don't know. At least by my definition of "pure". That won't stop me from buying her though (right now, the weather is - I don't want it shipped when we are having regular temps above 105F)
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata