Will you be Crossing your subspecies??

[viper23_1997]

I dont own any, but if i did then id consider , only if they looked awesome like the spider piebalds do http://www.designermorphs.com/images/Spider Pied.JPG ,
and if i had someone willing to pay me at least $100)

 

[slacker]

Which hybrids look good? Other than Carpondoes (which usually look crap as adults anyway) and Jaguars (which only look good because they're Jaguars, not because they're hybrids, just like a hybrid albino Carpet would look good, but only because it's an albino, not because it's a hybrid - it's the trait, it has nothing to do with the fact that they've been hybridised), which ones do people like?

I can't answer that, the question is completely subjective. What I like, others might not. There's no way one person can answer on behalf of the masses and get it right for everyone

What will you do with the ugly siblings????

Sell them for less than the attractive ones. They're probably still going to come out looking better than your 'typical' coastal :lol: Sorry. I couldn't resist.

 

[CarpetPythons.com.au]

I agree, on the coastal thing.

 

[Sdaji]

So people will breed Hybrids so they can sell them as pure????...........or do you mean sell the one's that don't look like Hybrids as pure. And keep breeding Hybrids in the hope something 'Good Looking' will come out?

Hybrids often look like pure individuals of one taxon or another. Pure snakes often look more like a typical snake of another taxon than their own. These days people are into morphs, so no one wants a typical individual of a taxon anyway. Very often I see things being sold as pure, which are clearly not what they are supposed to be.

I've seen 75% Macs which look less mac than this thing. I could probably sell it as a pure individual of just about any locality of Children's or Stimson's, and no one would have reason to disbelieve. Incidentally, it's the third generation I've produced of the line and it's very much locality pure.

I bought this Tiger fairly recently as a locality pure animal, and was puzzled as she didn't quite look right (although she is still gorgeous!). I did some digging and found out the story behind her (yet to be absolutely confirmed, but I'm working on it). She is locality, but a completely different locality from what I was originally told. Many siblings from her litter have been given out, and now a lot of people believe that they have pure Tigers from one location, when really they're from another, and probably they'll be crossed with animals which really are from that location, producing accidental hybrids, innocently being sold as something they're not. (Yeah, putting the picture up isn't really relevant, but I love her and she is so pretty that I'll take the excuse :lol: ).

Does anyone think that when someone advertises "NT Black-headeds" etc, and the seller knows no more than "That's what I bought the parents as", that they're getting something pure? We're already far too late. If you want pure, go to someone who knows where the original animals were collected.

 

[Dipcdame]

One word comes to mind - why?

 

[mrsshep77]

That's exactly what I was trying to say too, unless you go off into the sunset with herping kit in hand and pluck that snake from the wild yourself the only person you have to believe is the person who sells you the snake! Do your homework and research about localities but I'm afraid I agree with you Sdaji in the fact that it's far to late for 100% pure "locale" snakes 100% of the time!

 

[Sdaji]

That's exactly what I was trying to say too, unless you go off into the sunset with herping kit in hand and pluck that snake from the wild yourself the only person you have to believe is the person who sells you the snake! Do your homework and research about localities but I'm afraid I agree with you Sdaji in the fact that it's far to late for 100% pure "locale" snakes 100% of the time!

Not all the time. I know both the people who collected the original animals used to produce the Children's Python on the previous page, and where they were collected from. I've seen the original wild animals with my own eyes. That line is pure, I have no doubt. I have a few lines I know the origins of, and there are many more out there. I think lines like that are safer if we are more honest and accepting of hybrids. If we want to keep them separate we need to acknowledge the existence of both. If we try to pretend hybrids don't exist (including forcing others to do so), everything is mixed together. Of course, it really doesn't matter. The people who really care will keep things pure, the majority will grab anything with the pure label, and anyone with a clue knows that simply having a pure label is about as useless as a firearm when there are no cats or politicians nearby, while the rest are merrily breeding whatever they feel like with whatever else is handy anyway.

 

[junglepython2]

Hybrids are sold as pure, because it is much easier to move ugly hybrids if they sold as pure, plus they will get more money for them. If people are willing to breed them in the first place they don't really care what the puritsts think. Condoning hyrbrids just leads to more hybrids on the market and even more that are misrepresented. I understand we will never erradicate them, it's far to late for that, but it doesn't mean we should just give up.

 

[Sdaji]

I want one of those giant hamburgers from the birthday thread.

 

[aspidito]

Just thought I'd point out right now that there's 137 people who say NO and 100 people who would consider keeping and/or breeding, seems to not be as cut and dry as people think hey!

Yes I think that was the whole point behind this topic, to bring out all those people that have been too scared to say they like hydrids on APS, it seems there are more than some people thought, it gives us a better snapshot of the whole herp scene, looks like we will follow the European & US trends much quicker than expected

 

[ravensgait]

Someone asked ''Why"' well why not ?

People really seem to have a hard time with the words Hybrid and Cross(Intergrades),, breeding a carpet to a carpet isn't creating a Hybrid it is a cross, if you bred say a BHP to a Coastal that would be a Hybrid IE different species and the BHP would likely eat the Coastal anyway ..

Some crosses and Hybrids are butt ugly but as many if not more are at the very least interesting looking and some are fantastic looking. Here are some EmeraldX Amazon tree boa crosses
http://www.corallus.com/caninus/hybrid3.jpg http://www.urbanjungles.com/bhybridtreeboasb.htm these are some nice looking ones , there are better out there just couldn't find the website.
Here's one bred by John Martin

not all hybrids and crosses are ugly lol

Cement, I have to wonder could they use the animals you have in a study like I mentioned?/ did you grab all yours from the wild or are you like most everyone else IE having to take the word of the person you buy from..

How often have we seen people say they don't like coastals and that they should be fed to BHPs ? yeah most are just kidding. We like different things different animals ETC .

How many times do we see someone posting hey what is this snakes or what do you think of my Diiamond ! and it isn't a Diamond. Heck I see it most every day someone listing an animal for sale that is obviously something other than what they think it is. Most times it just ignorance, they don't know what they have . It has little to do with Hybrids or crosses and has been going on way longer than people have been purposely breeding Crosses and hybrids. Mistakes are made all the time and yeah I'm sure that a few have purposely misrepresented animals it happens , hey there are some het albino Carpets for sale , how do you know they are het? You don't you have to trust the person you're buying from.

Some crosses are not much to look at here's a Bredli Jag sib

Here's her sister

Randy

 

[jamey]

Guess which one I picked,
Keep them pure, It is our Australian wildlife we are entrusted to keep on license.
If you can't respect that - then maybe you should just get a cat, dog, rabbit etc.
We don't have to follow the yanks - we have the animals they all want - learn by the mistakes over there,
improve on it here - we are 20 years behind them on hybridizing but 20 years in front of them for Pure animals.
If they ever allow legal exporting of our reptiles - guess which ones the yanks will want??

Now that is hitting the nail on the head right there!If export ever becomes legal,I sure won't be looking for any X's!
Jamey

 

[Chimera]

After reading Sdaji's posts (and a bit of Dawkins) I must say that I have changed my tune on the topic of crossing sub-species. I would like to say from the get-go that I will not be doing this but here is my reason why.

These sub-species have evolved in different locations according to a number of environmental cues that favoured particular attributes, the end result is the wild type looks that have, in recent years, become a bit passe. The morph market has gained traction and is developed through favourable breeding of bright colours which is contrary to the environmental drivers in the wild. Further to this, the increased reproduction rate of captive pythons compared to wild pythons and the large control keepers have over which pythons breed has accelerated this change. End result, even in the short time that we have been breeding reptiles we have created a significant divergence from wild populations negating our ability to release them into the wild. To consider the pet reptile trade as a 'backup' for preservation of wild populations is ludicrous given the afore mentioned divergence.

The drivers behind the evolution of captive bred reptiles are based on aesthetics and robustness. A percentage of new keepers will be looking for something different to display in their living room and this market will be met with subspecies hybrids. The market for species and locality pure animals will not disappear nor diminish, the hybrid market will simply be one of the growth areas in the hobby along with the morph market. If we remove current restrictions on crossing subspecies and allow this market to develop then there will be an increase in the honesty of an animals history (why bother stating an animal is pure if you can sell it as a hybrid for the same amount). This has already occurred in the Port Mac carpet market, rather then people selling them as pure Diamonds, they now have an acceptable label to put on them.

As a final point, I think some APS members are guilty of thinking that APS represents a good sample of people involved in keeping and breeding reptiles. This simply isn't true, there are vastly different opinions and values held by keepers out there. You only need to consider the fact that there are 15,000 people actively keeping reptiles in NSW and compare that to the number of members. There are occasions where our finger is not on the pulse.

As I have previously stated, I will not be crossing sub-species. I do however feel that it is likely to be a foregone conclusion that this will occur.

 

[SlothHead]

Ok I have been reading the thread since inception, and really didn’t think that I would be making a post in it. But after reading this last post, I thought I “needed” to for two reasons:

1: I have a secret crush on Dawkins and he is my GOD…( anyone that knows about this guy well should get a chuckle out of that, and if you don’t know about him, I suggest you do some reading)

And
2: This post wins the award for best post of my APS life. It is rational, makes sense, and is grounded in truth. Well done, perfectly said.

I have also included it here as a quote for you to all read again.

After reading Sdaji's posts (and a bit of Dawkins) I must say that I have changed my tune on the topic of crossing sub-species. I would like to say from the get-go that I will not be doing this but here is my reason why.

These sub-species have evolved in different locations according to a number of environmental cues that favoured particular attributes, the end result is the wild type looks that have, in recent years, become a bit passe. The morph market has gained traction and is developed through favourable breeding of bright colours which is contrary to the environmental drivers in the wild. Further to this, the increased reproduction rate of captive pythons compared to wild pythons and the large control keepers have over which pythons breed has accelerated this change. End result, even in the short time that we have been breeding reptiles we have created a significant divergence from wild populations negating our ability to release them into the wild. To consider the pet reptile trade as a 'backup' for preservation of wild populations is ludicrous given the afore mentioned divergence.

The drivers behind the evolution of captive bred reptiles are based on aesthetics and robustness. A percentage of new keepers will be looking for something different to display in their living room and this market will be met with subspecies hybrids. The market for species and locality pure animals will not disappear nor diminish, the hybrid market will simply be one of the growth areas in the hobby along with the morph market. If we remove current restrictions on crossing subspecies and allow this market to develop then there will be an increase in the honesty of an animals history (why bother stating an animal is pure if you can sell it as a hybrid for the same amount). This has already occurred in the Port Mac carpet market, rather then people selling them as pure Diamonds, they now have an acceptable label to put on them.

As a final point, I think some APS members are guilty of thinking that APS represents a good sample of people involved in keeping and breeding reptiles. This simply isn't true, there are vastly different opinions and values held by keepers out there. You only need to consider the fact that there are 15,000 people actively keeping reptiles in NSW and compare that to the number of members. There are occasions where our finger is not on the pulse.

As I have previously stated, I will not be crossing sub-species. I do however feel that it is likely to be a foregone conclusion that this will occur.

 

[Retic]

I agree, that post by Chimera is one of the best I have read on this forum.

 

[Sdaji]

Good point about APS's members not representing the opinions of the wider herpetological community. APS is a small sample of them, and more importantly, a very skewed sample. Additionally, the views actually expressed on APS come from a very skewed sample of the already skewed members, and even further complicating things, their views are usually expressed only when they are either sure that people won't hate them for expressing them, or when they want to stir trouble.

This place is good for a laugh though

 

[Pixxie]

This place is good for a laugh though

I like your work Sdaji-eye.

 

[aspidito]

After reading Sdaji's posts (and a bit of Dawkins) I must say that I have changed my tune on the topic of crossing sub-species. I would like to say from the get-go that I will not be doing this but here is my reason why.

As a final point, I think some APS members are guilty of thinking that APS represents a good sample of people involved in keeping and breeding reptiles. This simply isn't true, there are vastly different opinions and values held by keepers out there. You only need to consider the fact that there are 15,000 people actively keeping reptiles in NSW and compare that to the number of members. There are occasions where our finger is not on the pulse.

As I have previously stated, I will not be crossing sub-species. I do however feel that it is likely to be a foregone conclusion that this will occur.

Very well put, there are a lot of people here that dont have their finger on the pulse

 

[mrsshep77]

Not all the time. I know both the people who collected the original animals used to produce the Children's Python on the previous page, and where they were collected from. I've seen the original wild animals with my own eyes. That line is pure, I have no doubt. I have a few lines I know the origins of, and there are many more out there. I think lines like that are safer if we are more honest and accepting of hybrids. If we want to keep them separate we need to acknowledge the existence of both. If we try to pretend hybrids don't exist (including forcing others to do so), everything is mixed together. Of course, it really doesn't matter. The people who really care will keep things pure, the majority will grab anything with the pure label, and anyone with a clue knows that simply having a pure label is about as useless as a firearm when there are no cats or politicians nearby, while the rest are merrily breeding whatever they feel like with whatever else is handy anyway.

Sorry Sdaji that's what I was trying to say :lol:
But not everyone has the same information available to them and that's where the questions come into it.

I agree that Chimera's post has been the most rational and well-thought posts I have ever seen on APS! Good on ya mate!

 

[cement]

Cement, I have to wonder could they use the animals you have in a study like I mentioned?/ did you grab all yours from the wild or are you like most everyone else IE having to take the word of the person you buy from..

Yes I do beleive that I do own animals that are locality specific. It isn't that hard to find here in aus if you put in the work. Also knowing well respected herpers that have been breeding locale specific from wild caught specimens for donkeys years is also helpful.
Sure I have some animals that are eg just "maculosa" or just "variegata" etc. But i don't mislead people and tell them I know where they are from if I don't.
How about we stop jumping to conclusions Randy.