Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone else wish someone would start hybridizing some of these rat snakes? I think it would be interesting if someone could cross a spilotes with a bairdi, just to see what might happen insofar as the colors are concerned.

I recently attended a show and saw dozens of different hybrids. The sad thing was that pure (un tampered with) species seemed to be in the minority.

My answer is...No, I prefer them as nature made them and have no curiosity about the cross.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

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np
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-David Beard

www.herpview.com

Don't do it. Nature's cooking is the best! No mutts! No mutts! ....

It's like a German council on eugenics in here. LOL, Just kidding.

I have seen pictures and messages regarding Spilotus on this forum many times. I wonder, doesn't anybody realise that Spilotus is NOT a ratsnake but a racer?!

Ratsnakes belong to the tribus Lampropeltini, along with kingsnakes, milksnakes, gopher/pinesnakes, longnosed snakes, glossy snakes etc. This means they share a common ancester more recent than with other groups of colubrid snakes, therefore having a higher degree of genetic compatibility within the group boundaries compared to species of other such groups. Spilotus belongs to the tribus Colubrini, along with races, coachwhips and indigo's. Therefore it is very unlikely that Spilotus is genetically compatible with snakes belonging to the tribus Lampropeltini. Also, Spilotus (not unlike the closely related indigo) seem to be ophiophageous, so any attempts to interbreed Spilotus with Pantherophis would propably end up with the latter being eaten by the former.

Recently Pantherophis species have been succesfully bred with Lampropeltis and Pituophis species. Although some of these hybrids may be just as viable and fertile as any pure Cornsnake or Kingsnake, many others are not. Since not all breeders are 100% honest about the genetic history of the snakes they are selling, making contamination of bloodlines not considered as hybrids a very likely possibility, genetic problems like reduced fertility, growth rate or even viability are an accident waiting to happen in future generations of many species of colubrid snakes. Although some of these hybrids may be very beautiful indeed, I plead against crossbreeding different species (this goes especially for intergeneric crossbreeding) for we all could end up with dead end snakes eventually.

Greetings,

Herman Bronsgeest.

Herman, I agree they wouldn't be compatible. However, this forum has a history of being a catch-all for anything called a ratsnake, sort of like the old Elaphe genus itself. We have covered genera like Gonyosoma, Coelognathus, Spalerosophis, Zaocys, and Ptyas, to name a few. It's kind of ironic, because many of the ratsnakes we discuss and keep were at one time called racers, and we have changed their names to ratsnakes, such as the Chinese stripe-tailed racers. Go figure! Actually, I think racers and ratsnakes were much more closely related at one time than in the present. Snakes like the Gonyosoma, seem to inbetween racers and ratsnakes. Finally, the racers and ratsnakes in Eurasia are much more closely related than racers and members of Lampropeltini in N.A. I wonder why we don't hear about those racers from Eurasia on our forum. I'd just love to see pics of some of them and compare them to Old World ratsnakes that we have. Thanks for listening....Terry.

Actually, Eurasian ratsnakes like Gonyosoma, Coelognathus, Orthriophis, Zamensis etc belong to the tribus Lampropeltini as well. Old World ratracers such as Spaleorosophis, Ptyas, Hierophis etc on the other hand, belong to the tribus Colubrini.

In the past, there have been several intercontinental crossbreedings. On a reptile exchange here in Holland about 15 years ago, I saw hybrids between Elaphe s. schrencki and Pantherophis g. guttatus offered for sale. Since I haven't seen these hybrids again since then, I guess they turned out to be infertile. A couple of years ago someone in Italy crossed Rhinechis scalaris with Pantherophis g. guttatus. I haven't heard of any F2 offspring, but still it could happen. I wouldn't bet on it though.

Why bother anyway? Take it from a former intergeneric crossbreeder (that would be me), it just isn't worth it! Curiosity is not a bad thing, but how exiting these hybrids may look the first time you see them, eventually you will get bored with them and try to crossbreed them with yet another species, and again, and again. You will never be satisfied for long, inevitably driving you down a dead end street as genetic incompatibility problems can and will accumulate along the way.

Greetings,

Herman Bronsgeest.

I don't think anyone will disagree with me on this: Spilotus are drop dead gorgeous, breathtakingly beautiful creatures. Why fix something that isn't broke?

Well, I'm with you on that - tiger rats are beautiful animals, and I didn't mean to suggest that they needed to be fixed. Same goes for Bairdi. As a matter of fact, they are two of the prettiest species I'm aware of, which is why it seemed like such a good idea to me. I mean, just imagine how beautiful it could be, and how unusual they would be, and how variable the colors/patterns could be. I'm no breeder, and never will be, but I think it's a shame that they can't be bred. Imagine a very dark Baird's, with metallic scales and the tiger yellows here and there. And personally, I don't see the point of preserving the purity of the snakes in captivity unless they're endangered, like Drymarchon or something like that. It's not like bairdi is disappearing in the wild. I just like things new and different, is all. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the classics. None of my current snakes are hybrids - I understand the merits of the basics as well.

The purity of Tiger Rats in captivity should be maintained, in my opinion, because not many people are working with the species currently. There are many things about them and their propogation that we are just learning recently......and until we better understand the species itself, we certainly don't need to go around muddying the gene pool by hybridizing them. I'm not against hybrids in general, but in this case I would greatly frown upon such activity.
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-David Beard

www.herpview.com

Spilotus pulatus and Pantherophis bairdi are both very beautiful snakes, I agree with that. However, when I try to picture an imaginary crossbreeding of these two species, I end up with results not quite as handsome as the parental species. I have seen this many times in my own experiments. When crossbreeding species that are very different in colouration, you usually end up with an undefinable, rather muddy coloured snake that nobody wants to have, even if you give them away for free. If you choose to produce hybrids, then at least try to give some direction to it by breeding animals that look good together, meaning they accentuate each others colouration. For example, breeding a Baird's Ratsnake from the eastern part of it's range in Texas to a well coloured Everglades Ratsnake would almost certainly result in a very handsome hybrid. However, breeding a Baird's Ratsnake to a Black Ratsnake, snakes that are both beautiful in their own way but also very different in colouration, propably would result in a hideous looking mutt. Now, when it comes to crossbreeding Spilotus, potential combinations should be sought within the tribus Colubrini, preferably a species of South American origin and of similar colouration, like Pseustes sulphureus (to accentuate the yellows) or Drymarchon corais (to accentuate the black pigments). Still, I do not advocate this practice. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Greetings,

Herman Bronsgeest.