Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How difficult is it to breed these animals together?

Here's the link......

hybrid discussion forum

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

easy as can be... they are almost the same snake.

if you go down that road, please make sure any babies are correctly identified to potential customers. it's really no different then hobby hondos that are a mix of all kinds of things... while they can be cool, it will mess up someones breeding project if they think it's pure and it actually isn't.

"it's really no different then hobby hondos that are a mix of all kinds of things... while they can be cool, it will mess up someones breeding project if they think it's pure and it actually isn't."

Hi Aaron.....

It's actually very different. Could you explain to me how a "Hobby Hondo" could mess up someone's breeding project?...LOL!

Anybody that knows of a source to any genuinely authentic L.t.hondurensis (and already knows the differences and paid far more for it as well) would already know that "Hobby Hondos" are varying percentages of other Latin milk ssp. Therefore they would never intend to breed it to an everyday common Hobby Hondo in the first place if they know what they have is indeed authentic. and if they did they would be complete morons. How else would they know about the other one being authentic if they would be so incredibly stupid as to turn right around and breed an authentic one to a hobby Hondo?.........seriously.

The only damage a Hobby Hondo could ever do to anything now is if someone bred it to another Latin subspecies that was something else altogether and keyed-out as such, or was definitely some other type of snake that they shouldn't have bred it with anyway. Either scenario would be their their own blatant stupidity, and of course the hobby mainstream would have to pay for this ignorance just like all the other countless crosses people produce and get misrepresented down the road.

Also, the OP is talking about doing a hybrid cross intentionally , not out of not knowing they are different right from the beginning or anything pertaining to unknown lineage of the breeders. His example is exactly like if I asked someone on a forum if I could breed my genuinely authentic L.t.abnorma to a Hondo or a pure L.t.polyzona or stuarti, etc... That would be an intentional cross, and a huge catastrophic disaster.

See the difference?.........I sure hope so.

cheers, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I think a hobby hondo has the potential to mess with someone’s breeding project. People that are new to the hobby and don’t yet know about locality animals or that hobby hondos are actually a mix of things could be at a pet store or herp show, fall in love with the honduran milk snake, get a pair, spend the next few years raising them up with plans to breed, then when they get babies and some come out looking different than what they expected whether it be morphs/black tipping/no black tipping/ whatever, it “could” be a disappointment.

I agree with you for the most part, I’m just saying a person doesn’t have to be a milkhead dealing with expensive pure/ locale animals to have expectations with what they want to breed.

Well, if someone gets into the hobby that knows that little about them, and starts with breeding two "Hobby Hondurans" that key-out even half-decent meristic-wise that don't look rediculously, and obviously "mutted-up" with something other than the Central American forms that have typically (but not necessarily) been a varying-percentage composite of them for decades (polyzona, stuarti, abnorma, oligozona, etc,..) then they will simply produce more very similar to the parents "Hobby Hondurans" just like countless others have done over the years (including myself). If they can't tell the differences between the subspecies anyway, and most in this hobby certainly CANNOT, I don't see how they could possibly be disappointed by making more typical Hobby Hondos..LOL! Then if people would only learn about what they work with in the first place BEFORE they become "PRO breeders", they could get on a waiting list for some 100% known-to-be authentic L.t.hondurensis (which are EXTREMELY rare, and are only a few of in the entire country). The guy that has these authentic Honduran milks (L.t.hondurensis) would NOT be selling any to some newbie that weren't hardcore milk buffs anyway, so unless it was some dark red/orange tangerines from the old-school "Vivid" line, They would have to settle for "Hobby" hondos anyway, or move on to another subspecies to mess with.

Anyway, the Hobby Hondos are one of the very LEAST "disappointing" scenarios today in my opinion. If you want an example of major disappointment, just go to any classifieds on any forums and you will see PLENTY to be disappointed about. amel Ruthven's x Pueblans )look almost pure high-yellow amel ruthveni) sold as amel "Pueblans"..LOL!,.....Textbook Newport-Long Beach aberrant Cal. king phenotypes that were also 25% Pueblan milk (that fooled even me, Ross Padilla, and Brian Hubbs) in an ad by a well-known hybridizer, A so-called "axanthic Florida king" that I saw at Daytona on a table, and told the very well-known and experienced field herper/herpetoculturist that it was clearly a Cal. king x floridana cross, and it looked exactly like something "so-and-so" would produce. So he practically fell back on ther floor laughing and told me....."holy CRAP!!!, that's EXACTLY who produced these!!". Or maybe the F-1 50% Gray-Banded king x cornsnake that looked virtually pure "Gray-band" except for the brown irises. Anyway, I could go on and on and right a book with countless examples, but Hobby Hondo are absolutely harmless and have been what they are in the hobby since virtually day one.......and it was (and still is) from igm=norance(not knowing), not from being crossed on purpose (mostly anyway). I don't think there is even 1% of the entire snake hobby that can tell me what the precise differences are between the Latin milks, or even recognise a textbook example if it bit them on the nose, much less any intergrade animals comrised of one or more other Latin ssp. Thay can all be pretty sketchy anyway , even for the most well-seasoned Latin triangulum aficionado without knowing precisely where in central America they originated from, and of course how well they key-out meristic-wise...............

Anyway though,there is PLENTY of other nonsense out there that is FAAAR more of a threat as far as diluting authentic genepools and making more questionable garbage out there than any Hobby Hondo could ever do....)

cheers, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree with you for the most part. I was just acknowledging the possibility of animals that are less than pure dissapointing indiduals that don't know better. It happened to me when i was a kid around 14ish... just getting into snakes as a hobby and not just a single pet. I purchased 2 blood red corns from a local pet store and was told both were het amel. They looked like the blood reds in the couple books i had at the time so i thought they were good to go... so i had high hopes of makes awesome red snakes. I did get a few babies that were what i was looking for but many more that looked very much like tan/orangish great plains rats with difussed sides... cool in their own right, but sooo not what i was looking for. Ended up giving them to the director of a local nature center to go towards his mussaruanas and some type of cobra (can't remember the type). I sold the corn(ish) babies back to the same pet store for 10 bucks each for them to turn around and sell them as blood red corns even though they were obviously some random mutts.

It's funny that you mention writing a book... I wish you would, haha. seems like once a week you have a post that makes me think "what in the holy hell??? i had no idea".

Seems like most books available just spit out the same recycled nonsense over and over. the only books in my collection that seem fairly informative/ impressive are Hubb's Kingsnake book, a couple books i have by the Barker's, and Black Python by Ari Flagle. So if you wrote one, i'd be first in line to buy it!

Yes, I totally agree. There is more unknown emoryi influence in corns than you could shake a stick at, for sure.

I couldn't agree more about all the milksnake books just having a couple simple paragraphs of regurgitiated information as well. Yes, Hubbs' "Common kingsnake" book was indeed a badly needed breath of fresh air for the getula hobby.

A "little birdie" told me that there will be something on the horizon regarding "Hondurans" and other types of snakes in the foreseeable future as well ..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Besides all the good points made by everyone, let's get back to the original question. We must not forget these two snakes just recently were described as different subspecies (10-15 yrs ago), so they actually "were" the same snake. Their ranges over-lap and naturally occurring intergrades happen all the time. Not only have they changed the "Elaphe" designation, but there even talks of including a third subspecies (slowinskii), which people thought were ordinary corn snakes. Obviously don't mislead anyone (customers or others) about what a snake truly is and don't release intergrade/hybrid snakes in to the wild, and let's all enjoy what nature gives us.

Where do they overlap? According to the range maps they don’t overlap. There is a touch zone between slowinski and meahllmorum but as far as I know this is the only intergrade area of these three species. At one time it was thought that the slowinski’s were emoryi x guttatus intergrades but now we know different.