Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What does everyone think about this snake? would you buy one or would you not?

I dont have any personal experience with them but I think they're cool looking and I would get one if I could afford it.

I personally think hybrids are cool looking. And like the previous post. If I could afford one, I'd buy one. I like the carpet x ball.

I like the "carpalls/carballs?" (carpetXball) the "bloodball/superball?"(bloodXball) and the "wall" (womaXball) They are expensive, and I would NEVER breed one if I got it, but it would be a cool pet. Does anyone think that any of these would have happened in the wild one day? Or do you think that only humans could have come up with these mixed spicies?

Carpets and Womas are Australian, and Bloods are Asian. So unless there are Balls in Africa with passports...those hybrids occurring naturally is completely impossible.

I think they are beautiful, with wicked looking eyes.

I understand that people against hyprids want purity for many reasons, including the basic reason of knowing what you have.

But for pets, I think hyprids are awesome.

I don't think the issue of altering the genetics in the wild, applies to this cross.

They're gorgeous pets.

I've been drinking too much? Why I spelled HYBRID as HYPRID only GOD knows?

Not big on hybrids of any kind. I find ball pythons and blood pythons look much better as pure animals. In some ways I also feel the wild type appearance of both animals and many others look far better than any hybrid and even some morphs.

As long as people properly advertise hybrids as that, even if the hybid is very dilute, I am not against it. I won't buy any myself, don't see the point. I rather buy a horse than a mule any day.
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PHLdyPayne

I currently do not have any hybids, although I do have a couple of hybrid projects (new ones) I have thought about. I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other, but I will never understand why this topic fuels such passionate polar opinions. In reality, whether we like it or not, when you really come down to it everything (and I mean every living thing, plant and animal) is a hybrid to one degree or another. The only truly "purebred organisms are clones. At least half the current population of the world has food to eat directly as a result of Hybridization. Almost every food crop and animal is a hybrid. Every "purebred" dog in the snobbish blue blood American Kennel Club started out as a hybrid not too many years ago, and it was only through the use of "un-natural" selection techniques that these breeds became "pure". Like it or not almost every living thing on earth shares at least 85% of their DNA with every other living thing. Think about the following excerpt below the next time you throw a mouse hopper to a hatchling.
To each his own.
Grant Whitmer

Man vs. mouse
-- Mice and humans both have about 30,000 genes - and share 99% of them. About 1,200 new genes have been discovered in the human because of mouse-human genome comparisons.

-- It might be said that we are essentially mice without tails - but we even have the genes that could make a tail.

-- 90 percent of genes associated with disease are identical in the human and the mouse, supporting the use of mice as model organisms.

The mouse in genetic history

75 million-125 million years ago

The common ancestor of mice and humans known as Eomaia scansoria was the earliest known representative of the Eutheria lineage, which gave rise to all modern placental mammals.

6 million years ago

The genus Mus is established, renamed later via Latin from Sanskrit word "mush," meaning to steal. The house mouse, Mus musculus, doesn't appear as a species until after the last ice age, about 8,000 B.C.

1900

Hobbyists selectively breed house mice with different color coats, among them agouti and satin, still used by laboratories today.

1909

Lab mice are developed from the first inbred mouse strain, known as DBA (dilute brown non-agouti).

1972

First computer database for mouse genetics.

1982

First transgenic mouse.

1987-89

First mouse to have a specifically targeted gene disabled or "knocked out."

1998

First cloned mouse.

1999

Researchers launch a concerted effort to sequence the mouse genome.

2001

First draft of human genome published. Celera sells a multi-mouse genome sequence.

2002

Researchers analyze mouse chromosome 16 and find similarities with the human chromosome 21. A framework map of the mouse genome is developed.

December 2002

The Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium publishes its efforts of a high- quality sequence and analysis of the mouse genome.

Sources: Wellcome; Nature

Chronicle Graphic

E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

i have mixed feelings. i agree with you about how prevelant hybridization is and how everything is essentially a hybrid. But i also know that many ball python owners like balls more than any other snake and don't want other species mixed in with them. At least not to the extent that a few years down the road we will have to wonder everytime we make a purchase if its a pure ball python.

here

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1.0 normal
0.1 Black Back
1.0 Yellow Belly