Question on genetics

[Lumpy]

So I'm asking this coming from the world of exotic bird breeding...

For those of you breeding, is there an ethical code for keeping blood lines pure? Like in the bird world an ethical breeder would not cross a Fischer's Love Bird with a Peach Faced. It would never happen in the wild, and the breeder would create birds with genetic impurity. The end result in most cases with birds is sterility in the cross bred young.

So, if you own an Eastern and a Puget Sound, assuming they were of opposite sex, would you house them seperately so as not to mess up natures balance?

Just curious.

Thanks

Lump

[EdgyExoticReptiles]

yes i would, some people believe hybrids are wrong and some people believe they are fine as long as they are sold as hybrids. plus a blue snake x a brown snake would probaly just end up looking like a brown snake with some blue tint or something (maybe if it was a red snake x blue snake it would be more acceptable in my opinion), not nearly as pretty as a puget. so yes unless you purposly want two hybridize to species i would keep them seperated (ones of opposite sexes)

So I'm asking this coming from the world of exotic bird breeding...

For those of you breeding, is there an ethical code for keeping blood lines pure? Like in the bird world an ethical breeder would not cross a Fischer's Love Bird with a Peach Faced. It would never happen in the wild, and the breeder would create birds with genetic impurity. The end result in most cases with birds is sterility in the cross bred young.

So, if you own an Eastern and a Puget Sound, assuming they were of opposite sex, would you house them seperately so as not to mess up natures balance?

Just curious.

Thanks

Lump

[Snaky]

I think most people don't like the idea of breeding hybrids/intergrade.

The problem is that you can sell them as hybrid and be open about that But if the one who bought it sells it, he might just say it's a normal snake of a certain species. If you then breed further... Actually you get unpure blood that you never get pure again...

[Lumpy]

Yup, it's the same feeling in the bird world and makes perfect sense. Cool, thanks for the input.

Lump

[jeanette]

from what i understand, if the option of breeding with their own species is there they wont hybridise with another species.

[Sid]

I don't do a lot of breeding with my Garters, but I will not cross breed one species or subspecies to anything else. I will leave the genetic strictly to nature.

[jeanette]

I don't do a lot of breeding with my Garters, but I will not cross breed one species or subspecies to anything else. I will leave the genetic strictly to nature.
i agree, leave nature to nature

[adamanteus]

Sids words are very wise... we can't better nature.

[Lumpy]

Good enough. My question really stems from any future aquisition of Garters, particularly the Puget Sound. Very pretty!

So, if I were to get one, I wondered if they could be housed together with my Eastern or individually.

Thanks for the info!

Lump

[Zephyr]

Good enough. My question really stems from any future aquisition of Garters, particularly the Puget Sound. Very pretty!

So, if I were to get one, I wondered if they could be housed together with my Eastern or individually.

Thanks for the info!

LumpFemales generally don't cause problems; it's the males. You could always get a species of the same sex... Or get 1.1 of one species and 1.1 of another.

[Lumpy]

I've been meaning to ask, what does that mean 1.1 or whatever numbers I'm seeing?

Lump

[Stefan-A]

I've been meaning to ask, what does that mean 1.1 or whatever numbers I'm seeing?

Lump
One male, one female.

1.2.3 would mean "1 male, 2 females and 3 of unknown sex".

[Lumpy]

Ah! Ok, I get it!

Lump

[Zephyr]

Females generally don't cause problems; it's the males. You could always get a species of the same sex... Or get 1.1 of one species and 1.1 of another.Or, even better yet, house the females and males of each species separately. :P

[drache]

what I do is I house females of similar size together and males of similar size

[Zephyr]

I personally have never had any accidental ingestion problems... However, I keep my snakes well-fed, so it's never really uncontrollable at feeding time.

[andyoconnor83]

Just to clarify with the example given, they wouldn't be hybrids, but unnaturally occurring intergrades, since they are technically the same species, but different sub species ie. Both are Thamnophis sirtalis, but the P.S. are T. s. pickeringii and the eastern are T. s. sirtalis. In any case, as was mentioned here, they wouldn't be very attractive most likely, unless they were easterns considered Florida blues... then you could get some very nice looking snakes, but for all reasoning, I would keep them separate. The babies would be fertile as well, just like if a Pugent sound (T. s. pickeringii) and a valley (T. s. fitchii) garter bred, which happens naturally in a few locations here in Washington state.

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Hello,

In this case, I believe there is no hybridization to fear since the Puget Sound (T. sirtalis pickeringii) and the Eastern (T. sirtalis sirtalis) are still the same species. I agree against giving them the opportunity to cross, especially if you are not dealing with simple recessive genetics. Subspecies characteristics usually deal with polygenic traits (I call 'em "blenders"). Blending or intergrading the two will alter the purity of both lines.

I intend to create actual hybrids between one and 2 other local species - pending approval from our local university and fish and game (still a ways away...) for research purposes only. Hybridization is suspected here in NW California. Proving that it occurs in the wild might explain many mysteries regarding the ancestral lineages of these snakes. Other than actually reading the DNA, breeding at least a couple of generations would be the only other way to determine actuality and thereafter the stats on fertility vs. sterility in proposed hybrids.

That's my take... Thanks for letting me ramble,

Steve

[Lumpy]

So Easterns, Butlers and Melanistic Garders are naturally occuring in Michigan. Wouldn't these from time to time cross breed?

Lump

[drache]

from how I understand it, the pheromones may be slightly different and there is a preference for one's own species apparently

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Currently, pheromones and even hemi-penal shapes and sizes in some species are leading theories as to how or why different species of garters stick to their own kind. Recent cladistic studies (i.e. genetic relationship b/n T. elegans, ordinoides, and atratus in Northern California) however are suggesting exceptions and perhaps even possible reasons for why Thamnophis' genetic origins and lineages are such a headache in the first place. Reintegration is even theorized. Imagine evolving separately, and then some ol' dormant genes reawakens to allow you to breed back to that ancient family down the lane... "Why 'dem mutants is gonna change me spots!" Nature is always changing. Garter foods (esp. amphibians) change. I am of the mindset that some garter species may indeed be "re-inventing" themselves.

Just mad about garters!

Steven

[GartersRock]

Hmmm... Very interesting!

[infernalis]

So Easterns, Butlers and Melanistic Garters are naturally occurring in Michigan. Wouldn't these from time to time cross breed?

Lump

Melanism is a genetic anomaly, it can occur in any species, my Melanie is an eastern. Scott also sells Melanistic wanderings.

[infernalis]

Oh crap, sorry lump.

I have read on more than one government run Herp sites that overlapping does occur in the wild.

[KITKAT]

I worry about the effects of selling a hybrid as a pet, and having the new pet owner let it escape. What would the influx of new genes do to the garter gene pool where the pet escaped?

[infernalis]

I would almost have to think as a guess, most likely if it were to breed, in short order, a couple generations later, the gene would be diluted out.

Here is a simple scenario, I can see it happening. If I were to purchase a pair of red sided, and they bred, I released the babies into my yard, where they are not native, yet the climate will sustain them, they would survive and adapt.

At the conclusion of winter, by pheromone identification, the siblings will most likely find one another and breed.

If one confused red were to successfully impregnate a local eastern, (I'm not even sure it will work, Scott Felzer knows what ones will actually cross) and a litter were born, they would be very interesting mutts.

I have to assume In time, the "Introduced" gene would fade.

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Unless the introduced genetics have a dominant effect in the cross. If that occurs, the influence may not fade out and instead pollute the entire line. How are we to know what will or will not happen? We can not assume that newly added DNA will disappear after time!

Steven

[Zephyr]

*Head-keyboard.* SO confusing! x.x
I'm still along the lines of thinking that California's garters are all messed up. XD

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Which species?

Even though I am a proponent of the belief that hybridization occurs in the wild, I currently think there are actually less such crosses than I had previously imagined. In my neck of the woods, I was quick to jump to conclusions as to some of the "mutts" I came across. There really is a lot of variability among these guys. Whether or not "contamination" has occurred in the last 30 years is unknown (but probably likely, especially where intergrades, not hybrids, might be concerned). The sirtalis clade has up to 11 ssp. throughout North America; with that many morphologically distinct locality types it is common for there to be even more subtle variations within a subspecies. Our local Coast Garter (T. e. terrestris) commonly shows up with background colors in red, or brown to olive to tan, w or w/o red flecking, rarely a "blue-belly", and all kinds of "unspectaculars" inbetween! T. ordinoides variation is insane (not just in CA!).

Cladistic studies are much more accurate than the older method of comparing morphological differences. Comparing the blended effects of red & black in the head colors of an intergrade between say infernalis and fitchi might be practically useless, if the blended colors have nothing to do with the intergrade itself. What if that intergrade zone contains a population that just happens to focus on a slightly different diet, and THAT is what is affecting the colors??? This refers to ontogenesis (what I like to call the "You are what you eat" study of evolution) What if the acquired immunity towards newt toxins in some garters and a subsequent diet of newts changes its colors or enhances its salivary toxins? What if? Ya can't rule anything out. Poison Dart Frogs become less toxic when they are not fed their native chemically noxious beetles!

Rambling again! Gosh darn it!