Keeping it pure?

[Bushfire]

This is an off shoot from a hybrid thread that got me thinking, thanks to Sdaji.

There's a few different broad groups of keepers, some like I found with myself change abit depending on the species in question. The groups being:

• Locality Prue: This group seems to want to know the exact locality of their animals. They tend to think if the orgins cant be traced to a specific location/road then it isnt worth having. They are often very vocal about it too. Simply saying something is an NT BHP, isnt good enough to them NT is a big place.

• Subspecies Prue: This goup seems to be happy with keeping things to subspecies level specific if that level is currently recognised. They think if the animals look the same (colour/pattern) and/or from the same subspecies but could be from different localities then it should be fine. Alot of Carpet python keepers would identify with this group with all the so called "subspecies".

• Species Prue: This group is very similar to the subspecies prue group. The main difference being they either mix subspecies; if that particular level is available or mix localities in species that doesn't have subspecies. They think different colour/patterns mixes, different localities mixes are ok as they all fall under the same species. Examples of this group are bearded dragon keepers, water dragon keepers, and a few hybrid carpet breeders.

• Mix and Match: This group will mix across species and genera to see what interesting things they will create. This group is often subjected to witch hunts and are often considered the outcasts of the herp community.

I mostly bounce between the first 3 depending on the species, but havent totally closed the door to the 4th as one day when hybrid lines are more developed something might grab my interest.

I have a few monitors which are locality prue, and wouldnt dream of mixing up localities with them. In the subspecies group I have a few of the carpet python "subspecies", I wouldnt know their exact locality but they conform to the old "subspecies" type, they may well all be the same species but I wouldnt mix them. In the species group I had the Central Beardies, I wouldnt know their locality and really didnt care so much. I would of been buggered if someone come along and splitted up vitticeps into subspecies, but would I really have worried much? I dont know it didnt make me sit up and try to seek locality beardies, it was all about colours. Similar with EWDs, I kept quite a few wide ranging different localities together without a second thought.

So I guess my questions is do you put some species / types over others when it comes to keeping it pure? Why? For you where is that line?

 

[No-two]

I'm still finding my place, I don't care much for many things other than antaresia and I keep it interesting by getting different localities, I guess it makes keeping two brown childrens pythons acceptable if they're from different regions, otherwise I wouldn't bother buying a bunch of brown snakes if they were all from one place and there wasn't atleast one thing to diffrenciate between the two (such as locality), but as I said, it also keeps me intersted and is somthing to do.

I say keep it pure but if I had two brilliant childrens pythons from completly different localites (that were similar in some way) I'm not sure how I'd feel about crossing them, probably not a great deal when it comes down to it. But for now it's locality stuff.

I wouldn't bother crossing species and I don't like localities consisting of NT or QLD (like with bhps for example) but I can't explain why.

 

[cris]

So I guess my questions is do you put some species / types over others when it comes to keeping it pure? Why? For you where is that line?

The line is at the end of a piece of string. The battle between localism and racism in most cases is pretty pointless.

 

[Londos1990]

I guess i dont like the whole cross breeding stage we are all taking about just my opinion but locale to me isnt much of a deal, i have 2 womas from different locales and i plan to breed them, i am purchasing a BHP in a week and i dont know its locale and im pretty certain its from a long generation of different locales, but it looks grwat and once again it will get breed with a QLD Bhp.

But i have 2 same locale pure diamonds.....

 

[TigerCoastal]

* Subspecies Prue: This goup seems to be happy with keeping things to subspecies level specific if that level is currently recognised. They think if the animals look the same (colour/pattern) and/or from the same subspecies but could be from different localities then it should be fine. Alot of Carpet python keepers would identify with this group with all the so called "subspecies".[/LEFT]

• Species Prue: This group is very similar to the subspecies prue group. The main difference being they either mix subspecies; if that particular level is available or mix localities in species that doesn't have subspecies. They think different colour/patterns mixes, different localities mixes are ok as they all fall under the same species. Examples of this group are bearded dragon keepers, water dragon keepers, and a few hybrid carpet breeders.

I think i fall into one of these 2 catogorys, i am still to decide where i stand exactly as i keep 2 "sub species" of carpet, and am new to keeping snakes, but i lean more towards subspecies pure untill i have done more research and seen more about the hybrid carpets

 

[GeckoJosh]

For me it depends on the species, but if i can keep it locality pure i will.

For reptiles such as beardies things are so mixed that i think trying to salvage locales would be a pipe dream, for me anyway.
When it comes to my geckos i will only breed to the same locale

 

[markars]

I like locality with some animals- especially restricted range subspecies, Like diamonds, I am really defensive with diamonds as i personally believe that they are in danger of being bred out, being that they are smack bang in the biggest city in australia and are subject to the most hybridisations in the hobby.

But with other animals i think species pure is sufficient. ( woma for instance- large range in wild, low human population density where it exists and no significant habitat destructions or other pressures aside from ferral predation and still relativly common in wild) so if we did breed them into a muddy puddle in the hobby, there would still be plenty of pure animals to be found.

 

[Norm]

I`m only new to herps but I would fall into the sub species group.
The reason I love pythons is because of the look of a wild one not a manufactured colour morph. But having said that I think its a matter of time before hybridising becomes more accepted and it is probably through this that the hobby will grow. There always has to be a new frontier for people to conquer and keep them interested.
Just look at the humble budgie, would it be the worlds most popular cage bird if it only came in its wild form of green?

 

[No-two]

I`m only new to herps but I would fall into the sub species group.
The reason I love pythons is because of the look of a wild one not a manufactured colour morph. But having said that I think its a matter of time before hybridising becomes more accepted and it is probably through this that the hobby will grow. There always has to be a new frontier for people to conquer and keep them interested.
Just look at the humble budgie, would it be the worlds most popular cage bird if it only came in its wild form of green?

They're jsut colour morphs and have nothing to do wiht hybridising, there are plenty of python colour morphs aswell, everyone has been saying hybrids will take off soon for years, it's still yet to happen, no doubt there are more around than previously but I don't see them being as big as everyone seems to think.

 

[Norm]

I`ll just clear up my position on this.
I think hybrids and differant colour morphs including longitudal stripes are nice to look at but I find a wild python equally nice to look at.
I would hate it to get to the point (and I know its a long way off) that you couldn`t get a wild looking python from captive bred stock.
I`m all for people pushing selective breeding as far as they can but I hope we keep a good mix of purest and for want of a better word `extremests`.

 

[Sdaji]

My personal preference is for locality if possible. To me, a locality is loosely what I would consider one population. "QLD Black-headed Python" seems a bit like saying "NSW Diamonds" or "QLD Jungles". If it was of unknown locality a state label wouldn't be appealing to me even if I trusted it (which I wouldn't). Locality purity isn't always an option, and to be honest, I would rather have a stunning black and white striped Spotted Python of unknown origin than an ugly brown one from some town half way up the QLD coast.

It never ceases to amaze me that people will yell and scream about crossing Carpets while no one says boo about locality never even being mentioned or cared about in most species. If the objective is to maintain something natural-looking, why are morphs acceptable? If the objective is to maintain locality for the sake of locality, why is it okay not to even care about Bearded Dragons, Knob-tailed Geckoes, or most other species?

What seems to be the case is that most people don't really understand the situation. They can only identify something to keep pure if a name has been put on it. There seems to be the misconception that gene flow occurs between things of the same name and not between things with different names.

Take Children's Pythons and Stimson's Pythons. There is no point where these forms have any type of genetic isolation. As you go from, say, Darwin south to Alice Springs you'll see them gradually change from typical-looking Children's Pythons to typical-looking Stimson's Pythons, and there is no point where there is any sudden difference. If you were to collect a group of animals from a single locality in the middle and designate each one to either stimsoni or childreni, you would end up splitting animals into two different species, even though they were part of the same breeding population, with some of them coming from the same clutches! So, while a taxa purist might say it's okay to cross an Alice Springs Stimson's Python with a wheatbelt Stimson's Python, they might say that one Antaresia could not be ethically crossed with another one found under the same rock. There are many examples like this, and the Carpet Pythons provide plenty.

There are actually cases where one snake might be more closely related to one which lives thousands of kms away than to a snake living right next to it. It is very difficult to describe, but sometimes reproductive isolation mechanisms prevent sympatric reproductively compatible races from reproducing. This is very difficult to describe, but it's like a mild version of Carpet Pythons and Chondros living side by side in the wild, being capable of reproducing but (generally) not doing so. A Carpet Python from Iron Range is more closely related to a Carpet Python in Victoria than to a python next to it. There are reproductively isolated races living together in the same way which we still classify as belonging to the same species/subspecies (but since they don't have different names I'm struggling to provide examples or give names). I suppose this demonstrates that to most people, it's completely bewildering to understand exactly what's going on, and you can understand why many just want to get a snake they think looks pretty.

 

[Poggle]

what he said.... i think i fit more in to the first 2 groups.if i can have one specific bloodline then i like to have iot by all means.. it is getting alot alot alot alot alot harder to do though. And like Sdaji said, some times if you find a rarity it is worth getting that pahse / colour in

 

[cris]

Good post Sdaji, thats explains things clearly (well i hope). I see a place for both locality pure (if as close to being 'natural' as is practiaclly possible) and whatever can be bred to look nice. I wouldnt cross what i consider to be seperate species though or whats likely to be considered illegal.

I think it would be great if everyone accepted the lumping of the eastern carpets and the 3 childrens pythons go back to being the same species, that will force the name purists to see the flaws in their thinking. They are pretty much the only reptiles the majority seem to care about being pure.

 

[Bushfire]

Sdaji and Chris, thats kinda what Im getting at or wanting people to start to think about. In a way I guess it does also come down to the old splitters or lumpers divisions but it seems to be species specific. I guess its impossible to ask people to apply their logic across the board (whatever that may be) and not just only one or two species.

 

[Simon_Archibald]

Locality pure is definately my obsession. If someone can show me the rock they collected the animal (or it's parents) from, I'm happy

 

[TWENTY B]

1,2 and 3 depending on the animal.

deffinatly not 4.

 

[Bushfire]

Hey Simon, would you apply those same rules to say King's Rock Monitors? As you would know this monitor only has a small distribution and I would say most who are familiar with them would say gene flow would suggest one population. Would you be as strict in wanting to know or only keeping locality specific specimens? Or would you only apply those rules to species that have wider distributions and a greater chance of regional variations? From your comments it seems you would be as strict but wanting to know if this is the case? and Why?

Please dont take this as me challenging your beliefs, its more so to understand peoples reasoning for the stances they take in such debates.

 

[schizmz]

im in the middle i guess..like i dont want it be like the u.s.a here where you can do whatever you want..."look at my snake its pink with yellow dots"..8(

 

[Sdaji]

im in the middle i guess..like i dont want it be like the u.s.a here where you can do whatever you want..."look at my snake its pink with yellow dots"..8(

What if someone bred two Carpet Pythons from the same locality and a quarter of their babies hatched pink with yellow dots? Would that be a bad thing?

 

[schizmz]

lol..err.. ummm .. no...