superball<3

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Originally Posted by Big Rich

Is there any pics of a superball floating around?

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I'm not a big fan of hybrids but I have to admit that these guys look rather cool. I do love both bloods and balls so it might be something I would actually like if i saw one in person.

Here's a link to the page on the Roussis Reptiles website:

http://www.roussisreptiles.com/colle...lls/super.html

All i have to say is WOW

They're pretty cool, but the ethics of hybreeding really bother me. In nature, a ball and a blood would not breed, but in a controlled environment, they are sort of forced to, which is unnatural. Like the burm/ball seems to have some deformations that may hinder it in life. I also don't really like pure breeds being blended together and bred around. When it gets so spread out, the breed becomes impure and loses its identity. :soapbx:

Anyway! :D

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Originally Posted by Sausage

They're pretty cool, but the ethics of hybreeding really bother me.

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That's the problem I have, too. I also keep carpet pythons and have some ethical issues with all the hybridizing going on there, too. Sure, we CAN do it, but does that make it right? I can do my part though, by keeping any animals I breed pure and true to their origins.

One thing I have been curious about is if you breed an albino ball to an albino blood, will it come out albino superball? Same thing with Borneo Bateaters (BurmXRetic)... I'd like to see it attempted.

As for hybrid ethics, all I can say is keep good records. Make sure everyone knows who has what, and what you're buying/selling.

Wow, those are really cool looking. Anyone know what these guys are going for?

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Originally Posted by Gooseman

by reasonable you mean 4 figure pricing right? lol.

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At Tinley 2 years ago, they were priced at $2k.

Btw, they are awesome looking in person. They get pretty girthy, like a normal blood.

Would any one buy one if they had the money? I would I think there cool.

WOW!!!!

More pics!!!

Anyone?

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Originally Posted by Sausage

They're pretty cool, but the ethics of hybreeding really bother me. In nature, a ball and a blood would not breed, but in a controlled environment, they are sort of forced to, which is unnatural. Like the burm/ball seems to have some deformations that may hinder it in life. I also don't really like pure breeds being blended together and bred around. When it gets so spread out, the breed becomes impure and loses its identity.

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Separating eggs from the mother and putting them into an incubator is also "unnatural" yet breeders do it all the time. This idea that something is wrong if it is unnatural is false.

Furthermore, the terms breed purity and impurity are very ambiguous. I'm not sure what you are talking about exactly. Populations of organisms are not pure in any sense of the word. They have tons of visible and invisable genetic variability. This is a good thing because it provides natural selection with a lot of raw fuel to work on.

Simply having an animal in captivity (or for that matter living near or within a human society) will cause "captivity" or "hatchery" or "human society favored" genes to be selected for. And there is no reason to think that these same gene variants would be selected and propagated in the wild.

For more info, see this article on unconscious artificial selection in fisheries.
Also see this post and the top of half of this post.

In other words, according to your reasoning having any animal in captivity is a bit of an experiment and is a bit of "playing God" because it will hurt "the purity of the natural gene pool".

What I don't think people understand about artificial selection is just how unconscious or happenstance it can be. This is probably due to teleological thinking and a kind of arrogant anthropomorphism that we all succumb to from time to time. This is why people often fail to make the connection between artificial selection and natural selection. They see man as too much of a designer or engineer in the artificial selection process. When a breeder uses selective breeding they are simply acting on the variation and mutations that are already there to shift a gene pool in one direction. Some of this may be conscious, intentionally planned decision on part of the captive breeder some of it may not be.

For example, by removing eggs from the mother and putting them in an incubator a breeder is whether he knows it or not selecting for genes over the generations that are likely to alter the ecological life history of the snake in ways that would not benefit it in the wild.

By separating offspring from the mother this is likely to increase the fecundity, or number of offspring per reproductive episode, of the captive females over time. Because of ecological, developmental, and evolutionary trade-offs, genes for greater fecundity are likely to be at the expense of genes for greater maternal investment in offspring. Given what we know about the life history of ball pythons in the wild, that they coil around their eggs in the wild to help incubate and protect them...these genes would not benefit the "purity" of the wild population. This is why it is important to keep captive or pet population away from wild population for conservation purposes. It also means that zoos that are trying to rehabilitate and restore wild populations face an uphill fight since it can be hard to recapitulate wild conditions in zoo.