Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I just got home from Bio class, and I was wondering if anyone has thought about putting a Carpall X Superball??? Or any other Hybrid X Hybrid breeding??? How cool would that be? Has it already been done? Pics? ect.

Hybrids are stupid and wrong and should never be done unless desperate to save a species.
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1.0 firefly(pos het pied) 1.0 enchi 0.1 bumblebee 0.1 mojave 0.1 butter pastel 0.1 spotnose 0.1 pewter 0.1 pastel 0.1 pied 0.1 het pied 0.1 vanilla 0.7 normals

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To play devil's advocate the same could be said about inbreeding that is used to create many of the morphs we currently enjoy.
As far as going hybrid to hybrid. The myth that they will not produce viable eggs is just that....a myth. It is true that the chances for viable eggs are going to be significantly less since there MIGHT be conflicting genes that may trigger different markers preventing fertile offspring....but this too is hard to predict without proper genome sequencing.
That being said, people have done it in the past with pythons and colubrids and have produced multiple generations of hybrids. I dont really see the point of doing it...but I cant call the kettle black since I enjoy the inbreeding process that produces morphs.
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Inbreeding/Hybrids = apples/oranges!

I dont know....would it be fruit salad at that point.
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>>So I just got home from Bio class, and I was wondering if anyone has thought about putting a Carpall X Superball??? Or any other Hybrid X Hybrid breeding??? How cool would that be? Has it already been done? Pics? ect.

You will get JUNK eggs from such combos!

Hybrid x Hybrid generally does not work!

SATAN
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"Satan™" is a registered trademark of NERD, Inc. Any copyright infringement is punishable by ETERNAL DAMNATION and some other terrible stuff.

I dont know brother.....there some F2s out there proving that hybrid to hybrid can create viable offspring...but like you said it USUALLY doesnt work.
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I agree here too. I think that the obvious muddling of genes would make for less viable eggs, but that doesn't mean they all are.
I think the "sterile hybrids" thinking comes from what you see in mammals. Most of the time they are described as infertile because they never have a sexual maturing hormonal stage. For instance, the liger is said to be azoospermic because of Haldane's rule. The female of the hybrid is perfectly fertile though. The opposite works for bird hybrids. This is because female is the heterogametic sex in birds.
From what I understand the male in reptiles is homogametic, so it would make sense that the hybrid females would be tougher to provide viable offspring, but not entirely.
Of course, I would humbly like to footnote that Satan would have way more experience than me on the subject.

let's say all eggs are viable and all hatch....

the problem would be , that after mixing too many species together...the kids all start to look alike...in that...brown on brown banded snakes....boring and monotone colored...

maybe...

it happens in kingsnakes ....they all become boring colors...

......even if...they are all mutts,.......

$5.00
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........JY

Hybrid to non hybrid works just beautifully though!

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Steve Roussis
www.roussisreptiles.com

It looks clownish...what is it?

NO!

Thats pretty presumptuous of you. To say, "NO" that no one has done this yet. I don't think that you know EVERYONE that works with hybrids, so how can you tell me NO that no one has tried this yet?

Hi,

In the unlikely event that the eggs were fertile and hatched, all that would really be accomplished would be the addition of ball pythons to the long list of other species that have been polluted by intentional crossing. It has happened already, as you've mentioned, but additional crossing will only harm the hobby, in my opinion.

Colubrids (kings, milks and rats specifically) have been crossed to the point where anything different is usually considered a mutt due to the crossing of species and sub-species. Even though the animal may actually be a morph or variation of a pure taxon worth considering. The initial "crossers" are usually proud of their creations and accurately represent the mongrels for what they are. However, once these animals change hands, the true lineage is often lost. It is at this point that the damage occurs, when they get misrepresented either intentionally, by the many unscrupulous characters out there who are only inspired to make a buck, or by some poor sucker who simply doesn't know any better. In either case, we all end up paying as the hobby is degraded one cross at a time as the lineage of these animals gets questionable.

Carpet pythons are a perfect example, breeders intentionally crossed coastal jaguar carpets with every available sub-species in an attempt to "create" a new look. When in fact, all that was really accomplished was the dilution of a highly esteemed group of pythons to pet quality junk, or less. Every pure carpet is now suspect, especially if it has a different appearance.

I don't mean to pound on you about this, but intentional crosses do far more damage to our hobby than good. The twilight of a species' potential occurs when lazy people take short-cuts to create different looking animals through intentional crossing of sub-species and flat-out hybridization. This is only my opinion, but I believe that it is an opinion shared by many other folks out there. Thanks.

Will

While I agree with you, id like to play devils advocate for a second since I think this is actually a great conversational topic.

So, couldnt the same points you made about hybrids ruining a species be brought up as counterpoint as far as the inbreeding process that is used to create morphs.
For example wobble in spiders, kinks in caramel albinos, difficulty producing viable females in deserts....all of these were done by man and not nature due to inbreeding.
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I don't believe inbreeding is responsible for ANY of your example problem morphs. Spider is the easiest to pick off. It has to be one of the most outbred morphs there is. So few people breed spider X spider that we still don't know if it's co-dominant (like homozygous lethal) or dominant. RDR reported that half the imported caramels where kinked. I don't know much about the desert but I suspect all of these problems are just part of the mutation like the color and/or pattern. We should not expect all pretty mutations to be caused by a health neutral chemical change.

The thing about inbreeding is that if it did cause a problem it could be undone by outbreeding. But once you introduce genes from another species it's just a matter of time before we lose track of them and they can never be eliminated short of starting over with wild normals.

As pointed out farther up we might eventually miss some really nice new pure ball python mutations once we can't be sure if they are hybrids or not. I for one will be weary of the next weird looking pet store ball python I see as it might be a hybrid with unpredictable genetics or worse health problems due to conflicting genes. I’ve actually proven a pet store ball I picked up around 10 years ago and even then I was worried about it possibly being a hybrid but the longer the clock ticks after the first person decided for the entire posterity of ball python keepers to introduce the genes of other species the more difficult it will be to be sure what you are looking at.

I dont disagree with you brother. Just pointing out what the other side of the argument may be. As far as inbreeding goes the reality is that we cannot definitively say if it is harmful and exaggerates the genetic deficiencies such as the "spider wobble" or "kink" in other morphs or is harmless and does not contribute to any of these problems. The only way we can know for sure is to do a comprehensive study, which as far as I know has not been done.
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The first spider that came in to Kevin had a wobble. So in nature something happened to the DNA and messenger RNA. Same thing with the hidden gene womas. I think that there is a "stop" in the messenger RNA that doesn't allow the super woma to survive. If there is a way to get the cytosine, guanine, thymine, or adenine to match up where ever it is stopping on the RNA replicating strand, then we could eventually have super womas with no problems, but that is YEARS away. And a lot of scientific research in ball pythons.

Oh I'm all for outbreeding. But in the case of the deserts we aren't sure a single inbred animal has been hatched yet and I think the evidence is pretty strong for very little spider inbreeding and plenty of caramel outbreeding so I'm just not thinking inbreeding is a factor for these three. I also don't think any of them are hybrids so guess we have gotten a bit off track.

I respect several of the large breeders who work with hybrids so I'm not disparaging those that work with them. Just hoping they take some time to think about the impact on future keepers. It just seems like something that can't be undone once the first hybrid is sold whereas there is always an opportunity for future outbreeding, even just with the current huge captive population. I’m probably over concerned with the impact of a few hybrid genes anyway …

Hi,

You raise some great points. However, inbreeding in and of itself is not necessarily harmful. Reptiles form distinct, wild populations from inbreeding. That is the main reason why locale specific animals are valuable, because inbreeding has made them unique for their particular habitat. These populations are formed through genetic isolation and inbreeding. In these populations, harmful genes are selected out out as they occur and are not artificially supported as they are in captivity. The examples you cited should by rights have been selected out by the initial breeders of the morph through ruthless culling. Now, because we are suckers for some of these appearances (myself included), we rationalize as as to the severity of the bad gene "awe, my spider only wobbles a bit" or "I get many perfect caramels along with the kinked ones". However, these unfit genes are well known with their associated morphs. For a keeper to be surprised about the anomolies associated with some bp morphs, can simply be attributed to that person not doing their homework. Many hybrids and crosses (I'd say the majority) are passed along unknown to their owners, especially once the animals get beyond the first generation. This is when these animals are are often back-bred or out-bred to create further crossess and then mis-labled with whichever term will result in a sale.

Thanks.

Will

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Actually, I tend to agree with Randy, that inbreeding probably had nothing to do with the morphs that you mentioned. They have been outcrossed to death, yet they still have these issues. These examples probably should have been sh!t-canned once they were recognized to to be problematic, but by that point, we had rationalized them into the hobby. Thanks.

Will

As soon as I posted that I realized that IF there are any problems with desert they also can't be due to inbreeding as the first reported here (and not universally excepted) good eggs from desert X desert where this year.

You dont think related snakes would breed in the wild? I dont think they would know if they are clutch mates or a generation down. I think it is more likley that snakes from the same "family" would breed than snakes from different species. Many crosses are not even close enough location wise that they would come in contact with each other unless in a captive situation ofcourse there are exceptions.

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Hybrids are pretty common in the wild. Now that genome projects have started on hundreds of different species, we are finding that animals hybridize in the wild often. The hybrid off-spring, again IN THE WILD, are often successful and fertile. Whether this is due to hydridism or because of how sexual selection (the choosing of mates) works within and between species is not yet known.

I think if plenty of care is given when choosing the breeding stock the resulting off spring could be excellent. It also depends on what you are looking for to determine "success". Size, beauty and temperment of the individual, clutch size, breed-back time, lifespan, strength of feeding response, etc, could each be indicators of "successful" breeding. However, many could be contradictory. Some breeders may feel that only awesome colors and patterns are "quality", even if it is small, mean, or is a PITA to get bred. On the flip side, a quite ugly, but hardy animal may be preferred.
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25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

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