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Ha! Still off topic (sorry mods:))... don't have to worry about gear changes on the 1300S Mike - it has an awesome "quickshift" - a no clutch upshift so just a tiny flick of the toe and you're in the next gear (the spark is momentarily retarded to allow for a smooth change, so the power roll-on is stepless. 0-100 in 2.7 sec. You can use the clutch at lower speeds but the roll-on of power when I get onto the highway from my local road is just awesome... Yes, I've never worked out the change in sentiment between girlfriends & wives lol!

J
 
For what it is worth, the phenotype is the only real indication that we have when we describe diamond, integrade or coastal. The whole east coast of NSW is obviously home to carpet python that are or seem genetically the same, but the colour and pattern changes as you go from sth to nth or nth to sth.
Only by getting out there and personally sighting wild pythons are you able to get an idea of what is what. And I believe, that the catchers and relocators (who see hundreds) have a much better idea again, then your weekend herper, because of the volume of snakes that they actually see.
I reckon the confusion with the labels of these pythons is due to firstly, not fully understanding the word integrade, and secondly that with so much written word on the net on this subject, newbies tend to over think the subject and make it much, much more complicated then it really is.
Think of it like the colours of a rainbow, where as you go up or down through the spectrum, you observe that the edges of the colours blend, but when you stand back and look at it, red is completely different to violet.
The photos Blue has put up show a semi striped python and a spotted python. The pattern is different but the colours would be the same, yellow on black. The further north you go, you would expect to find more of the striping, or joining of rosettes and less of the spotting, and the colour changing to show animals with browns and greys, finally resulting in the pattern that we recognise as coastal.
It is interesting though that where colonies of python are isolated, then there will be a more similar pattern and colour throughout that region, and if it isn't yet, then it is on the way to becoming.
In all the years of relocating snakes here on the central coast in the Gosford shire, I have never seen a partly striped or half striped animal like the one that is in the photo above, though I have caught and relocated many, that people here would without hesitation, call intergrade because of the rosettes that join. Gosford isn't in intergrade zone so these are diamonds.
Also Ron in an earlier post you said something about Gosford black and whites.
M.s.spilota here in Gosford are not black and white, they are black and yellow.
Like the rainbow analogy, the whites occur further south. So... basically the white goes from white to yellow to brown as you go north, and the pattern makes changes along the way as well. Before we started keeping pythons, wild type would have been true to form in each area, now around heavily populated zones (like Gosford etc) wild type is slowly being influenced by the number of escapee pythons on the loose. Not so much in the country areas though.
 
Interesting chat guys. I thought diamonds required a lower temp to other pythons so are intergrades kept according to coastals heat requirements or diamonds? Be interesting to see someone do the research in the cross over area to see what is actually there, DNA/genetic testing.
 
Hi Darlyn, this is where a lot of diamond keepers get it wrong. They don't require lower temps, they just need the same temps less often. I am always reading info from people saying that diamonds shouldn't get over 30 degrees. I guarantee that if you give a diamond 35-40 degree basking site they will use it without any ill health.
In summer here they get all the heat they want, I record body temps of diamonds that I catch, and some that I catch basking are well over 30 degrees.
With my captive breeding diamonds, if their basking sites are on, then they have access to heat in the high 30's. The thing is..... when and how often is the heat on?
 
finally found the other photo
4795_1169108352416_4480919_n.jpg
 
Where was that one found, Longqi? Looks to have very strong coastal influence.
 
Marsh rd Bobs Farm
pure coastal with no diamond indicators anywhere imo
terrible photo doesnt do it justice
nearly full stripe with rainbow hues all over
 
Wow! I don't do any herping but I would never have thought you'd find something like that around there unless escaped.
 
That was before snakes were common as pets
Too many similar ones around that area to be a fluke
Most showed very little or no diamond influence
That one was the best I ever saw there though

This is why it will be difficult for anyone to state exactly where a specific diamond came from
Port Stephens has 3 distinct diamond colour variations plus these guys
One very small area has diamonds so black most people think they are red bellies at first glance
Roofer from Lemon tree passage had 2 light cream ones, not albino because no red eyes
but awesome snakes both adult female and definitely diamond going by the faint pattern
Vanished after he died
 
Your picture may have turned this debate on its head, Longqi! Could this picture also add weight to Rohdawgs argument in this thread? http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/australian-snakes-37/coastal-carpet-aviary-204161/

Also I`ve posted on here a couple of times before about My wifes uncle who grew up on a dairy farm in the very spot where we live now in Maryland, Newcastle. He has told me that in the bush between wallsend and minmi there were both diamonds and what he called "carpets". He `s no snake expert but he said they definitely weren't diamonds.

I guess the appearance of a photo like this makes both the above claims, mine and Rohdawgs a bit more possible?
 
"Roofer from Lemon tree passage had 2 light cream ones, not albino because no red eyes
but awesome snakes both adult female and definitely diamond going by the faint pattern
Vanished after he died "

I`ve heard these spoken of before, not sure if was you Longqi or someone else, may not have even been on APS, I cant remember.
 
Minmi has quite a few strange pythons there
Also some strange ones inland a bit

Always been discussion about different looking diamonds
Always will be
We have so much to learn
 
He died about 2001/2 if I remember correctly
But had them for a few years before that
 
Rather than turning the discussion on its head, I feel it reaffirms the massive area of overlap of the original two subspecies and that mixing between different populations has not taken place evenly. I doubt we will get any solid answers until someone gets out there and gathers a heap of genetic samples to profile and analyse. A daunting project even for a lmited area.

It would be interesting to know just how much the appearance relates to genetic differences and physiological/behaviuoral differences - not that I expect that I that to happen in my lifetime. But someone may determine the genetics of pattern and colour development/differentiation for a start. Even with the above, it will still be like a huge jigsaw puzzle in which human settelement has removed half of the pieces and disturbed many of the rest.

 
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