live birth

[Hickson]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Benefits?

1. Not having to worry about incubating the eggs.
2. The live young can disperse immediately, so your reproductive efforts are not all concentrated in one place - in case a predator comes by (not putting your eggs in the one basket).
3. Young can look after themselves immediately (snakes, anyway). Venomous snakes are venomous from the moment they hatch (well, before they hatch, actually).



Hix

 

[angelrose]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Wow, thanks Hix, 1 more question, you said,

1. Not having to worry about incubating the eggs.

I was under the impression that you did not HAVE to incubate the eggs of snakes, that this was mainly done by breeders by choice because they want the mummy snake feeding again and ready to get her groove on again for next season, can i leave mum on the eggs, in a nice little cave like nestie type thing with a soft moist substrate and let her cook them.... will she still feed while she has eggs... or can i leave her on the eggs not feeding till they are readdy to pop.?? Ok that was more than one question... Oh, and what are the chances of her eating her own eggs?


Also, if i did this, is it true that she WILL not breed the next season.

Angel

 

[Hickson]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Angel,

We may be crossing wires here.

When you asked about the benefits of bearing live young, I assumed you meant in a biological sense, from the snakes point of view.

If you meant the benefits of keeping livebearers as opposed to egglayers, then you would be better off waiting for someone like bigguy to answer your questions. And it is not recommended you let the female incubate, for a variety of reasons.



Hix

 

[instar]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Angel, in pythons, the females shivers to raise her body temp and keep the eggs at optimal temp, this takes considerable energy. compound this by the fact that she wont eat while incubating and you can see why natural incubation takes alot out of a snake, hence breeders incubate artificially, although the snake still wont eat for a time while gravid energies are directed to the eggs which takes it out of mum.
Hence the benifits of live bearing as Hixmentioned, are two fold, less energy required/shorter time while gravid, mum can slink off and resume eating after birth, as can babies, and as mentioned, they are all mobile quickly, and this is great for avoiding hungry nest raider preds.
I recommend a book called "Australian Snakes~a natural history" by Rick Shine, has oodles of great info, worth every cent, mine was $35 from angus and roberts or one of them anyway.

 

[SnakeWrangler]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

are there any snakes that we know used to lay eggs who now bare live young? :shock:

I would love to hear the answer to this one.

And I would like some cold hard facts, like an observed egg layer becoming an observed livebearer!!

red bellies evolved into live bearers so they can live further south than other black snakes

Are trying to say that these animals made a concious decision to become livebearers so they could live in a different location? I guess the answer to the first question must also answer this one!?

 

[instar]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Evolution!

 

[AGAMIDAE]

RE: Re: RE: live birth

Alot of elapids that give birth to live young live in cooler parts of Australia, therefore it is best for them product fully developed snakes...as it is to cool for incubating and elapidas dont have the abitily to shiver as pythons do.....live barring snakes destation period is almost twice as long as egg layers

 

[peterescue]

Re: RE: live birth

If anyone here (female that is) gave birth to eggs, then they have got some problems.

I hear New Zealanders lay eggs.


Snakewrangler, you are again confusing creationism and evolution. Evolution takes time while creationism takes faith but to the thread at hand Psuedechis is a good example. There you have red bellies which are live bearers while the rest, blue bellies, spotteds, mulgas etc are egg layers. What has happened it that over a period of time a sub set developed as a regional variation and adapted to the prevailing conditions.
Much as happens with individual fly populations in the lava fields on the Hawaian Islands wher observable evolution has taken place. There small islands of vegetation have survived lava flows and allowed discreet populations of flys to develope independently of each other.

 

[Bryony]

RE: Re: RE: live birth

:shock:

 

[peterescue]

RE: Re: RE: live birth

Yeah, a great big one that is nearly as big as their body.

 

[angelrose]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Angel,

We may be crossing wires here.

When you asked about the benefits of bearing live young, I assumed you meant in a biological sense, from the snakes point of view.

If you meant the benefits of keeping livebearers as opposed to egglayers, then you would be better off waiting for someone like bigguy to answer your questions. And it is not recommended you let the female incubate, for a variety of reasons.



Hix

No, you answered my question as i meant it Hix, this stuff really does facsinate me, i might have to go down to the library.

Im keen to know about the red bellies and if they were ever observe as laying eggs, does anyone know?

Angel

 

[serpenttongue]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: live birth

Angelrose, the redbelly was first described by Shaw in 1794, and they were live bearers back then. 211 years isnt long enough for a snake to evolve from a live bearer to an egglayer or vise versa.

 

[Tommo]

Tommo wrote:
red bellies evolved into live bearers so they can live further south than other black snakes

Are trying to say that these animals made a concious decision to become livebearers so they could live in a different location? I guess the answer to the first question must also answer this one!?

Evolution!

exactly, think about it. in colders temps the only rbbs that could reproduce would be those who held the eggs in alittle longer so there is more development. then as the species continue to move south, the time they hold the eggs in is longer, until they dont laying eggs and give birth to live young. they basically have eggs, but keep them in thier bodies.

 

[SnakeWrangler]

RE: Re: RE: live birth

Snakewrangler, you are again confusing creationism and evolution. Evolution takes time while creationism takes faith but to the thread at hand Psuedechis is a good example. There you have red bellies which are live bearers while the rest, blue bellies, spotteds, mulgas etc are egg layers. What has happened it that over a period of time a sub set developed as a regional variation and adapted to the prevailing conditions.
Much as happens with individual fly populations in the lava fields on the Hawaian Islands wher observable evolution has taken place. There small islands of vegetation have survived lava flows and allowed discreet populations of flys to develope independently of each other.

A snake completely changing its genetically inbuilt way of reproducing and a fly having observable variation is completely different, variation and adaption within a species is normal as is natural selection, but this is a far cry from non-living, inanimate matter somehow becoming alive and then slowly developing into human kind as you see us. Even evolutionists have to concede that there MUST be something that is ETERNAL by nautre, otherwise there would never have been anything for "creation" however you explain it, to have happened.

If as evolutionists see it, the big bang started everything. What caused the big bang?? There must of been something already there!! What created that matter?? Something that must have already been there!! This can go on and on, nothing cannot become something!!

So unless you can deny that there had to be something that has always existed, then why cannot that thing that always existed be God!!

 

[SnakeWrangler]

exactly, think about it. in colders temps the only rbbs that could reproduce would be those who held the eggs in alittle longer so there is more development. then as the species continue to move south, the time they hold the eggs in is longer, until they dont laying eggs and give birth to live young. they basically have eggs, but keep them in thier bodies.

But where is the proof that they ever were egg layers?? There is no proof of this, it is only a theory that is believed because other snakes of the same species are egg layers. But what about pythons, the diamond python syndrome only affects diamonds, yet it is the same species as almost all other carpets, yet they are not affected. Just because one animal from a species is different it doesn't mean that they once had to be the same. Variation within a species is normal, so is adaption and natural selection.

 

[Hickson]

Just because one animal from a species is different it doesn't mean that they once had to be the same. Variation within a species is normal, so is adaption and natural selection.

Not meaning to be rude, but do you actually understand the mechanisms involved in evolution?

"Variation within a species is normal..." - this is correct.
"...so is adaption and natural selection" - this is also correct.

Natural selection will select for individuals that are better adapted to survive in an environment. The adaptions (or adaptations) can be behavioral, physical or genetic. But those adaptations are the variations. Continued selection for the favourable variations will lead first to a new subspecies, and over a long period of time, to a new species (sometimes more than one new species if the population is evolving to occupy several different niches).

But they all originally evolved from one species (which might now be extinct).

So the statement you make "Just because one animal from a species is different it doesn't mean that they once had to be the same" is nullified by your second statement.

If as evolutionists see it, the big bang started everything.

Evolutionists don't worry about things like the Big Bang. That's Cosmology, the origin, formation, development - and evolution - of the universe. But it's nothing to do with evolutionists, they look at living organisms, not lumps of rock in space.



Hix

 

[angelrose]

ok now im confised, ok, so theres no proof yadda yadda... but... when you say they evolved from egg layers to live bearers... surely there is no inbetween, one season it was egg, the next it was live, there is no inbetween , so 100 years or not.... i still dont understand... to you see what i mean??

Angel

 

[SnakeWrangler]

Hix,

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the origins of all variations within a "kind" of animal did not originate from one small group of specimens, actually you have demostrated perfectly the opposite, when animals were first brought into being they contained all the genetic information needed to "create" different sub species through natural selection and adaption, this is why we see so many variations within each kind of animal today, as they dispersed across the earth, natural selection took over and adaptions were made. This is not evolution, but rather a very natural and intended process. You will also notice that when an adaption is made it involves THE LOSS of genetic information, which shows that within any kind of animal the variations become more specialised but never really increase. So this in no way shows that humans could have evolved from primitive life forms and even if you could show it, where did those original life forms come from??

I like how you dodged the "big bang" question, this is one that there really is no answer for, there has to be something eternal, something that has always been there. Evolution comes back to the beginning of the universe, if you were to concede that God created the universe, then you would also have to concede that His revealed Word clearly goes completely against the evolutionary view of the world, so to overcome this you need to take God right out of the equation, this means that you also have to reject the idea that any matter can be eternal because if there is such a thing as anything that is eternal, then there is no "scientific" way to decide if that matter is lifeless and chaotic or all powerful and a living rational being, having this doubt would cast a huge shadow over the whole evoltuionary theory.

Even if all other points are "refuted" this one can never be, something has always been there, and this something, whatever it may be, is responsible for the creation of all things...

 

[SnakeWrangler]

ok now im confised, ok, so theres no proof yadda yadda... but... when you say they evolved from egg layers to live bearers... surely there is no inbetween, one season it was egg, the next it was live, there is no inbetween , so 100 years or not.... i still dont understand... to you see what i mean??

Angel

I am confused too...

 

[SnakeWrangler]

they basically have eggs, but keep them in thier bodies.

Actually I was under the impression that the babies are in an embryonic sac or membrane, I may be wrong, but if I am not then how did they get past the "gap", when a snake that was say half way through this development, the baby would have been born in a sac, not yet being fully developed and would have never survived without the protection of a full strength casing (the egg). This means that this development could never succeed because no babies would be born with the next stage of development. The adults producing these half developed sacs could not produced an any more formed one as there genetics were set from birth and could not change so they could not be responsible for further developed offspring. Even if it could be shown that the snake went from egg to live bearing, it would still only show a loss of gentic information, so therefore it wouldn't be "real" evolution anyway, it would be adaption...