INTERGRADES - Your Thoughts

[Zanejb]

OK ill add my small input as im NOT an expert on this issue as for a long time ive stayed away from this subject as with some other threads i try to avoid it gets too heated as there are too many different points of view. ok here it is; the "intergrade" from what i gather is a natural accurance that has happened in the wild and has developed its own "bloodline" and really its own "sub species" ive seen a pic or 2 of natural intergrades and they look like a diamond that has banded white and the black has a green to purple tinge (this is only what ive seen in photos) however a "hybrid" on the other hand is a 1st generation captive CROSS! the snakes (generally diamonds and carpets) look alot like coastals with the yellow spots on the scales and look a hell of alot different. a natural intergrade would have most likely been the inland and diamond a long time a go right? (yes this is a question im not trying to state a fact as i said im no expert on this subject). This is all i know or how ive interpritted the information that ive gathered and id like to stay far away from this subject in the future! and i think that moderators should have this thread removed if it ever comes up again!

 

[WeLovePythons]

I would like to apologise for my part in this thread going south. sxc_celly I would like to say sorry to you for taking your thread off direction. Greebo thankyou for deleting some posts. I think it was going in the wrong direction. Jungle and I have sorted out our differences between us as adults. not as 12 year olds lol. Sorry again

 

[Greebo]

Ok. Everyone take a deep breath. We are all here because we love reptiles. Basically we are all on the same side. If people care to debate this topic further, please do so with out resorting to name calling.

 

[nervous]

this is a stupid topic
as it is like saying should
white ppl be with black ppl
or ethnic ppl be with asian ppl

they should xsist as every living thing deserves to survive

cheers
ben.......

 

[Rennie]

No, humans are all the same species, there are no different sub-species, just races.
Diamonds, coastals, intergrades, etc are different sub-species.

 

[Snake Catcher Victoria]

Yeh, my head hurts now, good on you bigguy for trying to make the people understand. Fully agree with what Zard said in his last post to.

 

[dragon_tail]

i must be misinformed then i guess? but i would like some education on the pictures circulating (several of them, one even taken by a friend on a herp trip around aus) of a coastal entangled with a diamond CLEARLY breeding one particular photo is on a low branch of a tree, another is at the base of a different tree with different snakes (the two ive seen most recently). One of the two i know BEYOND DOUBT is at prt mac..... perhaps it is a carpet further down the evolutionary train as you describe it, mating with a diamond that has reached further in its morpheological progression? or is it a diamond breeding with a coastal? i dont really know, but i understand the confussion.

 

[Retic]

Show us the photo's and we can discuss them. It's sounds a little like the Diamonds found up here in Brisbane.

 

[bundy_zigg]

not just in the reptile species, natural intergration is a natural prosses, its called evolution!!!!, its a process that takes millions of years to happen but in the process species are changed and its normally for the best, thats how any species of animal survive!. In saying that im a firm believer in not playing god, its not up to us to made things that are already beautiful in to something else just so we can say we have made a new species or colouring, im disgusted in the birds that people are creating now days using inbreeding to produce abnormal colours. thats my say for today LOL

 

[dragon_tail]

im not into playing god and hybridising either, although i dont suggest we kull juvie hybrids (as its not their fault, and im no hitler) its really the breeders own fault. please dont anyone get me wrong, im not for or against anything, im simply interested.

 

[-Peter]

If this sub-species had have been given a proper name instead of 'intergrade' there wouldn't be people claiming Port Macs are "naturally crossed" pythons.

Wish I'd seen this post earlier, I would have carried you round on my shoulders at the Expo for an hour.
If we stick to calling them Port Mac carpets, Dorrigo carpets etc most of these people will come to understand.
The term intergrade should be made redundant in these discussions.

 

[dave8208]

well......why is it that when a diamond python has different patterns which resemble carpet patterns or the spots arent quite right or not enough yellow or what ever , it is called an " intergrade " which is a stupid name that downgrades the snake and makes it sound like an unattractive thing to have.
i was at castle hill snake show the other day and saw womas in displays , and had i not seen the head i would have sworn they were black headed pythons..............so , whats the difference and why are yous blokes not saying that a woma is an intergrade ..... magically turning into a black headed python through evolution ( or visa versa ) ????? the only difference is the head colour. and there is a huge pattern difference over the range - like Diamonds
And if certain people can pick an intergrade so well , and know so much about them , why would you go to a reptile meeting and tell one fella there, that his yearling diamond is an intergrade and then turn around and tell another fella that his is a pure diamond - when they both came from the same cluth or eggs - same father ? i know , because i bred them . do you do this to bag other breeders who are in opposition to you Bob ? - wouldnt be the first time
- this causes disharmony among people - and confusion
Why dont we at the very least ,call whatever it is , something different to an "intergrade" - I dont like the word and dont believe it exists - they are either Diamonds or Carpets.
So , if there is a snake outside the colour patterns of either - why dont we call it a Northern Diamond or Southern Coastal Carpet , or Both - anything but an Intergrade

 

[junglepython2]

The term intergrade has negative connotations only because people incorrectly call hybrids intergrades. If this were to stop the negative connotations would go away.

 

[Zoltag]

To me, hybridisation is the process of interbreeding animals of different sub-species with a mixture of desirable traits, in order to maximise the chance of producing off-spring with all of the desired traits...

This is essentially what breeders already do - As for whether they cross-breed sub-species or dont, I really dont know (who does?)...There is one major problem I can see with not crossing sub-species when you're trying to breed certain traits, and that is the fact you are severely limiting the DNA pool...And in some cases you may even end up inbreeding (whether by design or inadvertantly), which is much worse than any hybridisation...

This, in turn, leads to animals that are more prone to disease, genetically defected and difficult to keep...

Its a fact that (taking the dog example again), "mongrel", or cross-breeds are typically smarter, healthier animals that have less demands on the owner (and therefore easier to keep)...This is usually due to specific recessive genes related to problems with the breed being cancelled by the dominant gene from the other breed...

In the end, there are enough people wanting pure-breeds for pure-bred lines to be maintained, but if people like hybrids, why shouldnt they be allowed to have them?...And if people stop yelling and screaming about how bad hybrids are then breeders would have no reason to try and trick people into thinking they are anything else...(and I wouldnt be surprised if that goes on a lot more widely than people think)...

 

[junglepython2]

Cross breeding only hides negative recessive traits, line breeding if done correctly can totally eliminate them. Line breeding isn't worse then hybridisation. Hybridisation washes out individual gene pools which are specific to an area, this is why animals caught in one region are very rarely ever released into another region, if it is withing the range of the same species.

 

[bigguy]

Dragontail, easy to explain. With intergrades you can get from the same clutch some that look more like Carpets, and some that look more Diamonds. Specially in the mid range of their area like Port Macquarie.

 

[dragon_tail]

so in essence of what your saying, a diamond python is a carpet python that has morphed due to environment into what it is now., and at the begining of this range that creates the morpheological change (port mac) is where you find the same species that may look like two different ones? or am i still confussed?

if im correct in assuming this, then i would be interested to know if anyone has done a genetic comparrisson of a carpet and a diamond that has taken on the full characteristics of a diamond.

 

[bigguy]

Dave8208. Get your facts right . I never told those teenage boys that one was an Intergrade and one was a Diamond. Before they even showed me their snakes, they told me they were bred by you. Why on earth would I say that siblings were 2 different species. What they were told as I was probbing their snakes, was one more closely resembled a Diamond than its sibling which clearly showed strong intergrade markings. This is very normal with intergrades found at their southern range.

As for not recognising intergrades, thats your right. But not many people support your views. Even NPWS has given them a seperate sub species status with their own species ID number. Obviously you were not at the March SOFAR meeting were I gave a talk on the differences between the two.

As for your comment regarding Womas and Blackheads, it truely shows how little you really know. Both these species are in the same family(aspidites) but they are distinct species from each other with totally different DNA. They are also found side by side too each other in many parts of Australia. Eastern Carpets on the other hand (morelia spilota ) with the same species DNA are divided into subspecies and are not found side by side, but in fact connected to each other by intergrades whereever the 2 subspecies meet.

What I cant understand is why some people who own NSW coastal intergrades think they are second rate snakes and try to pass them off as pure Diamonds or Carpets. Intergrades are just as nice, and in some cases even nicer than Diamonds or Carpets. Just a few weeks ago a pair of intergrade adults sold for $1800 and they were worth every penny.

 

[-Peter]

so in essence of what your saying, a diamond python is a carpet python that has morphed due to environment into what it is now., and at the begining of this range that creates the morpheological change (port mac) is where you find the same species that may look like two different ones? or am i still confussed?

if im correct in assuming this, then i would be interested to know if anyone has done a genetic comparrisson of a carpet and a diamond that has taken on the full characteristics of a diamond.

You are correct, the DNA work done on Morelia spilota ssp is limited to defining that they are all the one species. No one has fully mapped their DNA.
So far DNA has only shown that M.imbricata and M.bredli are distinct species.
All the M.s ssp would have come down through West Papua/PNG so they would in all likelyhood be descended from M.s.varigata.

 

[bigguy]

Greg Hollis of Port Macquarie, who breeds spectactular intergrades, was conducting DNA research several years ago. He had a massive cross sample tested. Greg had informed me that there were variations found in the DNA when the 3 species(Carpets, Intergrades,Diamonds) were tested.

Even though the Eastern Carpets are all the same species, there is still slight variations in the DNA of each subspecies and their intergrades.