Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it possible for E.Hogs and W.Hogs to be bred together?
if so what would they look like? and would the eggs be fertil?

I am just wondering. I am not going to cross breed hogs. Normals hogs are the best there is.

Brandon

what is the animal you have pictured?
--nick

>>what is the animal you have pictured?
>>--nick

It is a Gloucester Co. VA Eastern Hognose
Brandon

As much as I hate to say it YES, it is possible. Look at all of the snakes of different genera and species that people are breeding now i.e. jungle corns, different carpet/diamond crosses, ruthveni with every other lamproplet known.

I think breeding anything with a different species is done in poor judgement, that isn't what they were made for. I think you'd end up with a eastern color with a western pattern that WON'T eat mice, only frogs.

Hi,
I would say that all three of the hognose species should be able to hybridize.

There's one pubished report of a wild animal that was found that was a hybrid between a Southern hognose and an Eastern hognose. It was on a coastal Island. The island had both species, and this baby had characteristics of both species. Whether it was fertile or not is another story. And I think this was found before the real "rise" of captive breeding.

I would bet that the "Westerns" where they overlap have naturally hybridized.

Best,
Kenny

Well westerns and easterns overlap in a lot of their area and I have never heard of a hybrid, not that it couldn't happen, but I tend to think it doesn't. As far as easterns and southerns go, I think if there was more research done that southerns may indeed be a subspecies of the eastern species, they are real similiar.

>>>>>>

You may be right, Southerns do look more like Easterns on the outside. But, I'll believe anything now with most N.A. snakes. Given the kind of hybridization that has been shown across even Genus lines. Interesting to note, that both the fossil record and DNA, seem to show that the Southern Hognose is closer to the Westerns, then the Eastern. The Eastern sits as an outsider in a way- genetically, and in some characteristics of the vertebrae. The early hognoses that show up in the fossil record about 25 million years ago had some features more in line with H. platirhinos. However, we have to be careful since the evidence is based on a few bones, and vertebrae. The guy that pioneered fossil snake studies, Alan Holman recently passed away. The book "Fossil Snakes" is an excellent book to read if your interested in this kind of stuff. Auffenberg also did some early ID'ing of fossil hognoses.

And to continue on my tangent, an animal that gave rise supposedly to our Heterodon, Paleoheterodon, was also in Europe around the time it showed up in North America. One species from a rather GREAT skeleton, shows that the skull "might" have been really different in the Miocene with some possible ornamentation over the eyes. There was also some other more modern forms(closer to our time)in the south (H. brevis is one, and there's even some fossils sitting in bins still un-identified from some of those deposits). H. brevis died out and is only known from the fossil record.

Best,
Kenny