Hybrids?

[First_time_herp]

I've heard a little about snake hybrids and I was wondering:

1. Is there only a few types of snakes that you could breed togethery?

2. Is the life of a hybrid shorter than a regular snake?

3. Depending on witch snakes you breed how do you decide how to care for it? (Like say you bred a burn and a retic together, how would you care for it?

[Stormyva]

Hybrids are the equivalent of mutts in the dog world.
Most often the hybrids are crosses of different subspecies or locales. Such as a Queensland Carpet crossed with a Irian Jaya Carpet Python. Another cross that has been seen is the Borneo Bat Eater... a Burmese Python crossed with a Reticulated Python.
The life span shouldn't be any different than that of a normal.
There in lies one of the problems.... how do you care for it? Most of the time the care requirements for the two parents will be similar so the requirements would not be too hard to figure out.
I myself prefer to stay away from the hybrids but there are some really cool ones out there.

[CTReptileRescue]

Are all hybrids sterile?
I'm not up on my hybrid facts. I feel about the same as the above post.
But I do know of a few people and they claim them to be sterile. Is that true for all?
Thanks
Rusty

[Marla]

Rusty, guessing by my college biology and not by specific knowledge of snake hybrids, that should depend on how different the animals crossed were. For example, most of the boa hybrids we see are locale crosses and should not result in sterile offspring. On the other hand, crossing different species should, more often than not, result in sterile offspring. It's like how you can cross (say) a beagle with a Jack Russell and end up with a mutt that can produce more mutts, but if you cross a horse with a donkey, you get a mule which can't be bred.

[CTReptileRescue]

Ausome, thanks Marla, You explained that very well
Rusty

[Marla]

Thanks Rusty! I'd love it if one of our energetic members would do a little digging and tell us about the sterility/fertility of some specific crosses.

[Kara]

Well, Borneo Bateaters (Retic X Burm) tend to have low fertility rates when bred back to each other. We've bred a Bat back to a retic to create jungle retics & it's a hard cross to produce. We've also done Macklot's X Carpet (Carplots) and Carplot X Diamond (DiCarplots) and Carplot X Jungle (Junglots), which have produced some reeeeeeaaaaaalllllly weird looking snakes. Funny thing though, Carplot X Carplot = duds. So, not fertile when bred back to each other, but when outcrossed they are.

One theory on the whole hybrid thing - could it be necessary for the male of a different species to breed a female as close to ovulation as possible? Reason being that the female's pH creates a hostile environment for the male's sperm, since biologically speaking we're dealing with 2 different animals...maybe there's a better chance of the hybrid taking if he breeds her & she ovulates very soon afterwards, giving any viable sperm that necessary bit of time to fertilize the ovum.

Just some rambling & ideas...

K