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I frequent this forum because I like to hear the Australian perpective on these snakes, and to look at all the great animals, but honestly the anti-ameican attitudes are getting tiresome.

Nick

dont take it personally - we dont discriminate here in Ossy - everyone's a target - so take your medicine say thankyou and come back for more!!
 
Just like Nick,I highly value this site for the wealth of info available from Ausssies who have the privilige of working with the purest natural forms of these animals.
It is not personal attacks.It is the guilt by nationalisation sentiment that makes visits and posts here less than enjoyable.Although as one poster noted,I have seen the occasional hybridiser here trying to sing the praises of hybrids.Hybrids are not the way of the future....just another passing fad.
All the best,
Jamey
 
It is a fact that hybrids, once bred, are sterile. At least with the ligers, and the donkey zebra crosses etc, perhaps theres a message there from mother nature............. don't mess with stuff concerning her, she don't like it!

Ligers aren't sterile, the males typically have a low sperm count, but can reproduce, and the females are usually ok for breeding as well. Hybrid sterility isn't a fact, but is reliant on how close the parent species are to each other.
 
lol this thing is still going... I would't cross breed, but if a hybrid is really pretty I might be tempted to buy it...
 
Ligers aren't sterile, the males typically have a low sperm count, but can reproduce, and the females are usually ok for breeding as well. Hybrid sterility isn't a fact, but is reliant on how close the parent species are to each other.

This is true, but in reality, the female usually has trouble with pregnancy and delivery due to size and the mother or infant mortality rate is very high. Birth defects are also a major issue as is brain malformation. The simple fact is the liger or tigon are bred from animals that do not naturally come into close contact due to their habitats and breeding would never be possible without human intervention.
Also horses and donkeys and horses and zebras are close genetically, but their mixed offspring are mostly sterile, although an occasional offspring is found.
 
This is true, but in reality, the female usually has trouble with pregnancy and delivery due to size and the mother or infant mortality rate is very high. Birth defects are also a major issue as is brain malformation. The simple fact is the liger or tigon are bred from animals that do not naturally come into close contact due to their habitats and breeding would never be possible without human intervention.
Also horses and donkeys and horses and zebras are close genetically, but their mixed offspring are mostly sterile, although an occasional offspring is found.

Exactly, occasional offspring is still offspring, naturally occurring or not. Even if 1% of any live offspring in subsequent generations is fertile, that is still a hybrid that is able to reproduce. I am torn on the hybrid debate, leaning toward disagreeing with the practice as I for one wouldn't like to buy an animal slated as 'pure' only to find it is a 'mongrel'.
 
Exactly, occasional offspring is still offspring, naturally occurring or not. Even if 1% of any live offspring in subsequent generations is fertile, that is still a hybrid that is able to reproduce. I am torn on the hybrid debate, leaning toward disagreeing with the practice as I for one wouldn't like to buy an animal slated as 'pure' only to find it is a 'mongrel'.

I agree, it would make me quite sad to find out that one of my pythons (which are all pure) turned out to be a hybrid. If people are going to breed hybrids, they should sell them as such. If someone wants to but a hybrid then that their own decision, but if someone is looking for a pure and are sold a hybrid thats just all kinds of wrong.
 
JasonL: I love your work :)

It is a fact that hybrids, once bred, are sterile. At least with the ligers, and the donkey zebra crosses etc, perhaps theres a message there from mother nature............. don't mess with stuff concerning her, she don't like it!

I am not fond of heavy hybridising (I don't even personally like interlocality hybrids, let alone intertaxa hybrids), but that argument doesn't stand up. If mother nature's way of letting us know she doesn't like hybrids is to make them sterile, she is giving us the green light to hybridise every species of python with every other species, so according to that, cross your Womas with your Chondros and your Scrubbies with your Olives, as they'll all be fertile.

We all want alterations of what mother nature created, even locality purists like myself. We want better feeders, brighter colours, friendly Jungles, etc. Don't ask me why it matters to me, because I don't have a reason other than "I like locality pure, just because I do".

Since I can't come up with an argument which has any basis other than my own sentimentality and personal preference, I can't find a reason to tell people they "shouldn't" hybridise (where legal), just that I would prefer them not to, and of course, I can't expect people to behave as I would like them to, just because I want it. It's just like someone telling me that I shouldn't want a striped Spotted Python or albino Water Python, because it isn't natural, mother nature doesn't want it. If I was lucky enough to hatch albino Water Pythons, I can tell you I would be producing more of them, and doing it proudly (and for strange reasons even I don't understand, I would want to keep them locality pure, and be a little sad when other people crossed them with another locality, although I wouldn't be able to give them a solid reason not to).

Australians seem to me to be divided similarly to Americans when it comes to hybrids, but with more Americans, there are more of everything, purists and hybrid lovers. That means that there are more hybrids over there than here, so we might have the perception that they're 'worse' than us, but it's simply that there are more of them.

I find it sad that in time it will be very difficult to work out what type of snake you have, not just the locality of your Carpet (let's face it, that boat has already sailed in most cases; heck, it's not even easy to find a locality pure Coastal Carpet Python these days, unless you go for something illegally poached!) but also the exact mix of species that snake in the pet shop has. Hopefully at least for the rest of my life there will be enough people who are very careful and keen enough to maintain pure lines. Towards the end of my lifetime, maybe sooner, we should have pocket gadgets which will be able to DNA test animals on the spot and tell us exactly what they are (at least at the taxa/species sort of level). Hopefully we'll still have pure lines when DNA testing gadgets are cheap enough for everyone to have one, and from there it will be easy to keep track of everything. Of course, perhaps we'll all starve to death or die in nuclear wars before then anyway.
 
Damn it I cants gets no sleep so I thought I'd comment even though this debate's been done to death.

If it was a hybrid I'm quite sure you would know as soon as you see it.Hybrids are crossing different species like a jungle with a woma ,if it were to happen any knowledgable person will see the animals aren't pure anything.If you're talking crossing jungles with diamonds and coastals etc then you will not be able to definitely tell if the animals are pure or not.The fact that they bred together in the first place would suggest fertile young.

This brings me to an answer I've never been given which is how they go about producing hybrid pythons as in the wild several python species live side by side yet most won't breed unless they are the same species or sub species such as intergrade zones etc.Do they mate the animals at all?I mean within any species surely they wouldn't mate with completely different species or do they use artificial insemination or what?If they would actually mate and produce fertile offspring or not why in nature once in a blue moon don't pythons like scrubbies breed with jungles or coastals,antaresia with morelia sp etc etc. yet apparently a clutch of coastal scrubby crosses occured from a random mating from a male coastal over a female scrub in captivity in Vic from memory.There's a quite old book by Hoser with a pic of a coastal x scrubby.Funnily enough I knew an idiot who was mates with Hoser who said he caught the cross up North himself lol..I'd like to know but honestly could not be bothered searching the net to find out that's how much it interests me.

Of most sub speecies crosses I've had limited occasions to view and/or own none looked as good as eithr natural form bar one or two such as darwins x jungles which looked just like jungles which even very experienced ppl thought were pure jungles but the colour was very different and easy to see if you have kept and seen many many jungles.I had a jungle diamond cross that nobody at all could tell was not a pure jungle.

Totally disagree with hybrids in the true sense being the crossing of two different species however not radically opposed to morelia crosse however as mentioned most pure forms are much nicer.The problem will happen now moreso than any other time with the introduction of jags and albinos.There's plenty of possible pure morphs especially with darwins so why even bother crossing, try keeping it pure working with the variety there is such as hypo darwins,hyper,striped,ghosts if they actually got proven out with the very reduced patterns not just striped.It's happening as we speak however we have the option to keep pure animals but it is inevitable the jag gene will ruin and/or create a great many bloodlines,selective breeding at it's best...If I got a jag I'd try create a spasm morph first and would have a good chance of buying the morph like that already with no creation or help from me at all.......lol

It's the jags and albinos then striped animals,t+ albinos,patternleesanimals and all the other morphs that will come from them it could end up like the ball python world with carpets.Newbies to the hobby are going to go for the brightly coloured and uniquely patterned snakes"morphs" when looking at a coastal carpet compared to a jag or albino will go for the latter,I know I would if I came into the hobby in ten years time when albinos will be as common as coastals both morelia sp and antaresia if they successfully breed the albino mac at snake ranch.The morphs will become so common due to the massive diversity of the morelia group especially where it will unfortunately end up like the ball python world...do we want this to happen?Is there room for both?How credible will peoplebe when selling crosses etc?If in Qld it is illegal to breed albinos apparently would be a good law to be taken on by all states however still hving albinos but illegal to cros?How can this possibly be policed?It's almost like being allowed to grow 2 pot plants in your garden in the capital of our great country yet in Qld it's looked on as a serious crime,are we one country or not?All states should have the same laws it's so absurd unless things have changed and you can't grow a couple of plants in S.A or ACT........../..now where's that billy :)
 
lol posted at this time too lol sleepless night too sadji?
 
Just like Nick,I highly value this site for the wealth of info available from Ausssies who have the privilige of working with the purest natural forms of these animals.
It is not personal attacks.It is the guilt by nationalisation sentiment that makes visits and posts here less than enjoyable.Although as one poster noted,I have seen the occasional hybridiser here trying to sing the praises of hybrids.Hybrids are not the way of the future....just another passing fad.
All the best,
Jamey

Passing fad? Ohh how wonderful it would be were that correct.

Some say it would be easy to tell the crosses/mongrels/hydrids on here, obviously because of their experience and skill at being able to correctly identify different species. However, speaking as someone who just goes oooohhh.. pretty, I bow to your expertise. As hard as I have tried, I still cannot correctly identify even pure breds, what chance would someone like me have if hybrids were rife? Any unscrupulous breeder would be able to successfully convince me an animal is exactly what they SAY it is!!!!!!! (NO, I'm not in the market to buy at present, lol)

In many ways, the practice is just wrong.
 
Passing fad? Ohh how wonderful it would be were that correct.

Some say it would be easy to tell the crosses/mongrels/hydrids on here, obviously because of their experience and skill at being able to correctly identify different species. However, speaking as someone who just goes oooohhh.. pretty, I bow to your expertise. As hard as I have tried, I still cannot correctly identify even pure breds, what chance would someone like me have if hybrids were rife? Any unscrupulous breeder would be able to successfully convince me an animal is exactly what they SAY it is!!!!!!! (NO, I'm not in the market to buy at present, lol)

In many ways, the practice is just wrong.

Where I have a major issue (apart from the breeding itself) is when the breeders start selling 'mongrel' animals at above pure prices.
Look for instance at the so called 'designer' dogs we are being flooded with. At one time these poor things couldn't be given away and now are selling for above what the pure ones are in a lot of cases. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that stage with snakes. Especially as Dipcdame says, many people, myself included could well be duped into it.
I just don't want to buy into cross bred animals this way. I have crossbreed dogs, but would never buy one as a statement, nor as something to be re-crossed. They have all been desexed. It would be the same with reptiles as far as I am concerned.
 
heres a coma ,off a yank site.

please note - lack of heat pits
 

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I really cant make my mind up on this issue, im against repeated breeding of hybrids that are just stupid eg. comas, although its interesting to know that such diverse crosses are viable. Animals that would naturally breed if they came into contact are differant IMO. Crossing differant races or types of the same sort of reptile from differant areas obvious has potential to create differant looking reptiles or transfer desirable traits.

I still like to breed locale pure stuff where i know it is locale pure(this would be about half my herps), but i have been thinking about crossing gold and blue tree snakes (as well as also breeding locale pure). To me if the primary objective is producing nice unique looking snakes mixing snakes from differant locales and arbitrary names can produce some good results. An example of a nice snake like this would be a platinum mac, which i understand is a cross between a stimpson/mac intergrade/natural hybrid and a blond mac(please correct me if im wrong). Hybridising is a natural proccess, its just that most animals dont have cars or planes to get about and often stay in a prefered habitat.

On the anti-american issue, i think its a good indicator of low IQ.
 
Hey i have friends Hes samoan grew up in NZ lives in OZ shes english grew up in Germany then UK lives in OZ they got married. Now they want to breed .
Dam Hybrids;)
 
ive seen B&W's similar......oh forgot to mention NOT this bloody topic AGAIN!!!! lol :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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