Hybrids

[spazz]

WAIT! Before you castrate me and feed me to a zombie goat please read on.

I was just reading some old archived forum posts made by people that were interested in making hybrids for one reason or another. As I read deeper and deeper my skin began to crawl more and more. I have kept several T's over the years, but never really involved myself in a forum until I joined here recently. I simply had no idea it was such a problem in this hobby. I guess it just infects everything.

As a former African Cichlid breeder I know the trials and travails of hybridization very well. I always strived to acquire pure specimens from known lines, and first or second gen when I could afford them. But inevitably, even when I ordered from reputable dealers and breeders I would end up with some mutts in the mix. Now I don't know how you guys play it here, but if there is one bad apple, then the whole bunch is spoiled. I lost hundreds of dollars over the years I was active in breeding cichilds, and I can honestly say, nothing ruins my day like a damn hybrid. Makes me squirm when I see blood parrots, or "assorted" African Cichlids in a pet store. I will admit to having bought a few intentionally, before I understood what they were all about, though I certainly never bred them. It was my years in breeding that taught me to hate the practice.

I am an avid Ball Python keeper and am currently building up my stock to start a breeding program, and yet again hybrids are popping up left and right. Makes me sick.

People, these aren't pack animals, are there not enough species out there without humans mixing and matching them? With so many color and pattern morphs in ball pythons, do we really need burm balls or angry balls? And for that matter do we really need frankinspiders running around polluting the pure stock in our hobby?

Makes me sick to my stomach. End.

 

[Nada]

Hybrids in snakes are one thing. You get visible results and the animals themselves handle it well.
Taxonomy on spiders is no where near as far a long as it is with snakes. Species and genus' are constantly being changed without hybridization.
a corn is a corn, a ball is a ball and even when hybridized you can still acknowledge the parents. With tarantulas, you might be able to figure out a genus' at best.
I don't agree with any Hybridization, but at least with snakes there's a point....
(I don't know jack about fish)

 

[spazz]

Hybrids in snakes are one thing. You get visible results and the animals themselves handle it well.
Taxonomy on spiders is no where near as far a long as it is with snakes. Species and genus' are constantly being changed without hybridization.
a corn is a corn, a ball is a ball and even when hybridized you can still acknowledge the parents. With tarantulas, you might be able to figure out a genus' at best.
I don't agree with any Hybridization, but at least with snakes there's a point....
(I don't know jack about fish)

I see your point, but still tend to disagree. It is just completely unnecessary. There is a point to mules, they serve a purpose, and being sterile they are a genetic dead end anyway. On the other hand you could breed a ball python to a Angolan python, take the result and breed it back to a morph, and in several generations, and cooking of the books you could say, hey, I have a new morph. And if enough people buy into it, Boom!

Even with that unlikely scenario, and the possibilities of genetic testing, I still fail to see a good reason for it. As I said, there are enough species already, taxonomic knowledge not withstanding.

 

[Nada]

Your missing my point. I agree that it's stupid, but money talks. I can see the logic. There's no money in hybridized Ts. Makes no sense...

 

[Eightleggedchris]

There is a huge taboo about this in the poison dart frog hobby