Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After reading a few of the posts I can see the point of certain hybrids but why Cyclura lewisi crosses. This species is making a strong come back but isn't out of the woods yet and people are selling crosses, mostly with C. nubila, and not the actual animal. I just think that something so crtically endangered shouldn't be tampered with until it has been cleared of any danger of extinction.
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Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Though I AM a big fan of hybrids I agree with you. Some things should be preserved in their natural state before we lose the chance to keep them going in captivity. A few years back some were very against crossing Hogg Island Boas with anything. Now the Sunset [I think that is the one anyway} Boas are indeed stunning but more people will probably be making crosses instead of the real deal. There's a billion other things to mess with, some things should be left out of the hybrid picture for now. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research
R&R Herpetological

One reason is the legality issue, you could get offspring
with the beautiful coloration of lewisi out of hybrid parents without having to deal with the paperwork involved with pure lewisi. This was pretty common back in the day with Indian Pythons as well....Crossing them to a Burmese meant you could sell your offspring over state lines without the ESA paperwork. And if you've ever seen any some...3/4 indians are just as beautiful as a pure molorus. Try finding some pure traceable molorus today...it's alot harder.

Another reason (and this is just conjecture on my part) but I don't think there were many pure lewisi out there to begin with when breeding cyclura was so hot in the late 80s/early 90s...so, if you had a male lewisi, finding a pure female was very difficult...and only got more so as time went on. So...to get some babies of SOME kind from your animal you bred him/her with what you had, oftentimes cubans.

I agree with you. It wasn't a good idea then and even less so now. BUT at least there are enough verifiable pure animals out there to allow for captive propogation and reintroduction. There's been poor judgement made in the past and with these two animals in particular some damage was done...but I don't think these examples are valid as arguments against hybrids (other than possibly in cases of other endangered sp. or animals with a very small captive genepools) Such as breeding Annulated Boas with Amazons or Savus with Macklots. Seeing your name, what do you think of the dickersonae hybrids that are out there?

Horridus

Well they're kind of in the same boat as lewisi, We can't get many animals from the wild anymore so the captive genepool is limited and I really don't think that the animals look nearly as good as the original C. dickersonae.
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Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

I agree, although some of the hybrids are knockouts (at least the photos i've seen are). You'll have to excuse my ignorance, are they considered to be an uncommon species in the wild or is it simply Mexico's tight lid the reason for the lack of animals? I guess I don't mean to insinuate that you nor anyone here would EVER consider going down there to bring any back...but you do see some of the other Mexican/Baja animals show up when there's a demand (see agalma/enyo/Abronia) and I can't see why there hasn't been a demand...I don't really consider them a favorite but if I could find some big sky blue dickersonae at a show...i'd be tempted to say the least.

Horridus

It is the mexican government that has put restrictions on this species, but some day soon I plan on trying to convince their government to allow me to obtain a few of them and some other Crotaphytus species.And I would have to say that they are my absolute favorite of all these species.
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Today is the first day of the rest of your life.