Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been thinking about the fact that our commonly captive bred species may be so interbred that we may not even really know what we're breeding any more - and if we DO know, its our little secret

So I was thinking we might want to do a couple things. First would be to run some genetics (dna assays) of different morphs, and compare them against locality subspecies. For example, how do goini, brooksi, etc compare (on the DNA level) to museum collection specimens from 50 years ago.

This would allow us to certify lineages. And this isn't too expensive anymore.

The second suggestion is that we adopt the use of new scientific names for the commonly captive bred species. Since we really don't know how badly polluted the gene pool of commonly bred species (especially morphs) we should consider the adoption of examples, like these:

Pantherophis guttata domesticus
Lampropeltis getulus domesticus
Pituophis catenifer domesticus

and for ANY hybrid:

Serpent domesticus domesticus

I'm interested in feedback - and I'll post this in the corn snake forum too to see what they think over there.

Joe

NT

Let me know how that works out for you...
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Peter Jolles
www.heat-pits.com

Home of TEAM ECC
It's an Inner Circle thing... you wouldn't understand...

It would cost millions upon millions of dollars. The cost is not a simple test. In order to test something, a standard must me set. So for thayeri, someone would have to collect true thayeri and decide on which genes to use and set a templet. Then they can match other animals against this templet.

With Thayeri, this would mean using animals across a defined range. In this case, that includes a million, no a thousand possible ranges and populations. My bet is, arguements on what thayeri is, would take a decade or more.

Also, someone will have to set a specific gene to use as a marker. This has not been done, different researchers have used different genes and different markers. Which makes for lots of nice arguements amoung those researchers. All claiming their choice is best. hmmmmmmmmmmm hey they sound like us.

So I do not think it will occur anytime soon. Could you imagine what that would take with all the different species we are working with. Cheers