Hognose corn snake

[SnakeDoctor]

Just wondering if you could breed a hognose and a corn snake, or any other coloubrids to make hybrids like pythons, would it be rear fanged or not, hog big, what would it look like ...

[Roman]

Is this a serious question?? Normally I would say there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but this is one of the few exceptions.

Why would you want to breed two snakes which are not from the same species, not even the same genus but from two different subfamilies within the colubrid snakes (Pantherophis guttatus = subfamily Colubrinae, Heterodon = subfamily Dipsadinae). So they are as distantly related as it is possible within the family Colubridae!

I don’t know if a pair of these would even try to copulate with each other, if they might be able to identify the opposite sex in such a different species. Even if they might be able to it is probably not possible to mate for them because of a different hemipenis structure. We don’t want to speculate on the different genetics at all.

So bottom-line – it’s a really bad idea which hopefully wouldn’t work in the first place, but you should not even try it – you would be experimenting with living animals without the slightest idea what might result from it, a (unlikely) offspring might very well be disfigured and not able to live. Get yourself a nice breeding pair of your favorite species and breed them – don’t try to create Frankensteins monster…

Roman

[Badgemash]

Roman, take it easy, there's no need to get nasty.

SnakeDoctor the hybrids you typically see like a blood ball are still in the same genus, so although a Blood and a Ball look quite different physically, they're not very distant in a genetic sense. Hognose (assuming you mean western here) and corns, though both native to the US, are not only in separate genera, they're in separate sub-families as well (Xenodontinae for western hog and Colubrinae for corn). Colubrids are sort of a catch-all classification for snakes that don't fit elsewhere, so there's a lot of stuff in there that's relatively unrelated.

If they actually bred (and one didn't kill the other during an attempt) I wouldn't expect to see any viable eggs let alone healthy babies since they're pretty genetically distant. Taxonomically it would be similar to trying to hybridize a human (subfamily homininae) and an oragutan (subfamily Pongo), all in the family hominidae, but still probably not going to work out (ethical implications aside).

[Roman]

Roman, take it easy, there's no need to get nasty.

SnakeDoctor the hybrids you typically see like a blood ball are still in the same genus, so although a Blood and a Ball look quite different physically, they're not very distant in a genetic sense. Hognose (assuming you mean western here) and corns, though both native to the US, are not only in separate genera, they're in separate sub-families as well (Xenodontinae for western hog and Colubrinae for corn). Colubrids are sort of a catch-all classification for snakes that don't fit elsewhere, so there's a lot of stuff in there that's relatively unrelated.
[...]

You haven’t seen me being nasty, Devon


Sorry if I ripped your head off SnakeDoctor. From my and Devons answer it should be obvious that breeding a cornsnake and a hognose would be a bad idea and most probably wouldn’t work in the first place. What made me angry is not your question itself but the tendency behind it. Over the last several years there seems to be a tendency to experiment with all kind of breeding combinations. I am not really a fan of breeding morphs and the inbreeding it often involves, but I can accept that they have their fans and at least this is breeding within the same species (like ball pythons, cornsnakes, hognoses etc.). Some offspring show really spectacular colors…

Breeding between different species is another matter. If I see something like a hybrid between a cornsnake and a kingsnake it sets my teeth on edge. The resulting offspring might look interesting or even stunning, but in my opinion breeding like that goes in the wrong direction.

Here in Europe we face the same difficulties like you in the USA or Canada. The authorities and so called animal protection groups like “Peta” try more and more to regulate our hobby or even to prohibit it. Here in Germany some organizations like the DGHT try to prevent any further regulation by talking to the authorities. They try to convince them that most reptile keepers are serious about keeping their animals, that we provide the best possible care for our animals and that we reduce the amount of wild caught animals in the trade by producing our captive bread offspring. We could get some credibility over the last years, but if we start to create those hybrids just because we can do it we will get just more arguments against us for our opponents.

That’s why I became angry. We should try to establish breeding for as many species as possible to reduce the amount of WC animals offered in shops or on reptile shows. To establish breeding over generations we need to keep the gene pool as variable as possible without adding alien genes. So in my opinion we should avoid to breed any hybrids.


Btw Devon, the hognose Heterodon is now in the subfamily Dipsadinae, the subfamily Xenodontinae was placed into Dipsadinae and is no longer valid (see “The Reptile-Database” http://www.reptile-database.org, and R. Lawson; J.B. Slowinski; B.I. Crother; F.T. Burbrink: Phylogeny of the Colubroidea (Serpentes): New evidence from mitochondrial and nuclear genes. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 37, 2005, S. 581–601.)

Roman

[Badgemash]

No worries Roman, the internet is terrible for conveying tone and nuance, so I always prefer to err on the side of caution. And I fully understand your frustration with the PETA crowd, as they often seem too preoccupied with theatrics to engage in critical thinking or rational discourse.

And although the reclassification is likely valid, in the US ITIS still files them under Xenodontinae, so we don't get to officially update here unless ITIS decides to change it.

[slipknot711]

even with simple (yet awesome) garters youre not even supposed to cross breed lets say easterns to plains garters. etc etc.