Quote Originally Posted by MasSalvaje View Post
Richard you need to read the studies before you start trying to poke holes in them. This study had nothing to do with "canandian parietalis", It was done on two different populations of T. sirtalis; one in Michigan and one in Wisconsin. Also here is another study for you to read:

Phylogenetically Widespread Multiple Paternity in New World Natricine Snakes (King et al. 2010)

This study lists T. bulteri, T. elegans, T. sirtalis, T. radix, T. melanogaster, T. sauritus, as well as other species in Storerai, Regina and Nerodia that have all had published studies done to show that they utilize multiple paternity. This is not something that happens occasionally within a single subspecies, multiple paternity occurs regularly across the board in multiple species of Natricines.

I never mentioned anything about the amount of sperm one male can produce or how far it can go, that was your conclusion from the little research you did based on my words and those from the study you obviously did not read. In fact I didn't lead my remarks to any reason as to why multiple paternity would impact the factors being discussed, only that I believe they do have an impact.

Richard I don't mean to discount what you have experienced. You have your experiences and I completely understand why you stand by those. I have had my own however. I have had w/c vagrans throw entire litters of jellies, while I have had captive females throw large healthy litters, but that is just it! There is nothing as far as a published study that has examined the occurrence of full healthy litters in the wild compared to those that occur in captivity; until that happens, all of the debate back and forth in hearsay and I will remain unconvinced.

-Thomas Wilder
http://www.herpconbio.org/Volume_5/I..._etal_2010.pdf