New Python Species... Technically?

Eventually, perhaps in two hundred years, perhaps in 300, they'll become a seperate subspecies, one that's just a bit better adapted to the Everglades than it is to Southeast Asia. Becoming a seperate species will take much longer, it's not something we're likely to see.

Basing this theoretical timeframe on experiments done with captive foxes to explore domestication. It took about 50 years to fully domesticate the silver fox, with a lot of selection pressure. For an animal that takes around 3 years to grow to breeding maturity, the population could take on distinctive traits in 150 years.

Evolution doesn't take nearly as long as we used to think it did.

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Originally Posted by 771subliminal

then after 16 generations wouldnt snakes bred in captivity genticly differ from the ones in the wild too?

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I would think that they do differ, judging by all the morphs that people are creating by continual in-breeding....