superball<3

SO cool haha I just saw one for the first time.
next big thing? or is that going to be something that only breeders will touch? haha I can only imagine how high the price for one of those things must be.

The angolan ball is amazing too. :colbert2:

they both are pretty incredible... the superballs from what I've seen have a reasonable price... you might have to save a little to get one, but it probably wouldn't be too bad... ;)

There is something about them that really intrigue me. It seems the f2 generation of superball at roussiereptiles has taken the best characteristics of both the bp and the blood and produces an absolute stunner. I wish I knew more about them however. I know I read on their site they express hybrid vigor, but what about in the growth department. Do they have the common hybrid trait of being larger than the donor species? Or is it still going ro be roughly 3-5 ft in length full size etc. etc.

by reasonable you mean 4 figure pricing right? lol.

haha well I think I read they are a bit bigger than balls but I forgot as when I read it it was like 5 in the morning and I hadn't slept yet.

not a huge hybrid fan, despise the angolan ball, but i'm a little fascinated by the superball. i know it doesn't make any sense, but oh well.

generally i dislike hybrids as well, but there really is somethin to that superball... now if only it came in a "spider blood" morph. lol.

I'm guessing this whole superball thing is going to take off and go way over the line by breeding through bp morphs and blood morphs. But I am just as curious as the next person.

yeah, for "morphs" that is pretty reasonable to me... I've seen them listed from $800 - $1,500 and beyond. But if I remember correctly, I've only seen a couple below the $1,000 mark, and they really weren't too attractive... :) but I've never seen a price tag on those F2 superballs. I'm sure they will be quite a bit more...

Is there any pics of a superball floating around?

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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.

I wasn't a big fan of hybrids at first, but maaan, those are amazing.

I'm not a fan of hybrids and really don't see the point of them since there are so many different species of snakes out there.... BUT I will admit that the superball really catches me eye.

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Originally Posted by lillyorchid

I'm not a fan of hybrids and really don't see the point of them since there are so many different species of snakes out there.... BUT I will admit that the superball really catches me eye.

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By that line of reasoing why should we care about morphs then?

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

By that line of reasoing why should we care about morphs then?

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I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons. This isn't the case when species start to become hybridized in captivity. Just look at the carpet pythons and corn/rat snakes. It's almost to the point where you don't know what you are buying. I haven't read through this whole thread, but I read that Super balls are fertile and that F!s can breed with each other or either parent specie. I know that they are hard to produce, but if they were to become the next big thing, people would definately start breeding them back to balls to produce morphs and supers balls w/more bp characteristics. In that case eventually, long down the road, people would be right to worry about the possibility of impure blood in a bp they are puchasing to breed. Or maybe a few people will use bp genes to make a super ball morph, than cross it back a few times to bloods and claim they discovered the first piebald blood. If they got away with that, any future piebald blood or relative of one would never really be a blood python. Again, this is somewhat true for any captive breeding, but to a much smaller degree. Spiders for example, passing the wobble head gene to normals that get used in breeding projects with other morphs. I don't know if it's known whether this gene is seperate from the spider gene yet, but it's just an example. Whatever arguments you have for selective breeding not being natural, hybrids cross any gray line, because pedegree information for reptiles is almost non-existant, and unvarifiable at this point.

Is a hybrid two different species breed?

If so, what other hybrids are there out there?

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons. This isn't the case when species start to become hybridized in captivity.

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If the animals will not be released into the wild and any responsible keeper knows they shouldnt be then I still fail to see a compelling reason to differentiate captive normals, morphs, or hybrids.

If someone can produce a captive blood piebald they way you are saying, more power to them.

This may be a bit off-topic...but I share anyway since I thought it was really interesting.

We know from experimental evidence and Mendel's laws of genetics that it is possible to recapture the parental types from an F1 hybrid x F1 hybrid cross. How difficult it is to do this depends on the number of different genes between the two species. For example if the differences between the two species that produced the F1 was only 1 gene then you'd have a 1/4 chance of getting at least 1 offspring that looked like one of the parental species. For two genes it would be a 1/16 chance. For three genes, a 1/64 chance.

For any F1 x F1 hybrid cross...the frequency of the parental species being recovered in the F2 generation (assuming only independently assorting Mendelian genetic factors) is (1/4)^n, where n is number of gene differences between the two species.

People have done genetic archeology experiments with F1 x F1 hybrid crosses to estimate the number of genes between different species. For example, George Beadle raised 50,000 F2 plants from an F1 teosinte (wild corn) and corn maize hybrid cross and found that about 1/500 looked the corn or teosinte parent.

This means that there are approximately 4-5 gene that differ between wild and domesticated corn. So only a small number of genes need to be different in order for a paleontologist or zoologist to classify an organism as a different species. This means that the number of genes between and ball and say an Angolan python might not be that different as well. This also means that the number of genetic variants between recovering a wild-type from a morph x morph cross and a parental type from F1 x F1 hybrid cross isn't off by that much. This isnt surprising since its based off the same laws of heredity.

If you want to watch the lecture I learned about this stuff from see this video.

He talks about the genetic archelogy experiements with corn starting at about 6:30 of the video, continues the talk with similiar experiments on dog breeds and a talk on how a paleontologist would classify different dog breeds as different species simply by looking at the gross anatomical differences in skeletal structures to about 25 min. Large gene differences don't need to really exist for us to classify different organisms as different species.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons.

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One more point...are captive bred ball pythons that come from a long line of captive breeding projects 100% wild population ball pythons? No.....they are not....and that's my point. If released into the wild after generations of captive breeding would they breed with their wild ancestors in the wild? Maybe....maybe not....

Descent with modification my friend and a lot of modification occurs from animals being breed in a captive setting generation after generation vs a wild setting.

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Originally Posted by N4S

What other hybrid reptiles are there out there?

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Originally Posted by N4S

Is a hybrid two different species breed?

If so, what other hybrids are there out there?

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See this post.

and this thread for a start.

I'm with MB here... while I'm not particularly fond of most of the hybrids, it's a matter of personal taste for me. That said, I see nothing wrong with hybrids in particular. This is purely a guesstimate, but I would say some hybrids are a great deal more likely to occur in the wild than some of the morphs we've produced in captivity.

Is there a potential for problems if they are released into the wild? Sure... just like the problems with Burmese being released in Florida creating havoc on the alligator populations. The only thing you can do in regards to potentially "bad" bloodlines is purchasing from quality breeders. Could you imagine one of the major breeders bringing in a genetically tainted BP, and selling the offspring as Ball Pythons?

I realize why some may be a little hesitant, and I don't even question the fact that eventually bloodlines are going to be mixed, and less than honest breeders will sell them as pure. The only thing you can do? Take caution in your suppliers.

By the way... I'd be curious to see how many of those that take issue with hybrid snakes would feel there is an ethical violation in breeding a German Shepard to a Husky? I'll admit, I originally saw ethical problems until I realized that my dog Milo (which is the result of the above mating) is nothing different.

Ok I don't know if this has been answered yet, but I'm gonna ask again if it was. If the superball is bred for a long enough time, will it eventually become its own specie of snake? seperate from either a ball python or a blood python? Or does that only count if it occurs in the wild without human interference?

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Originally Posted by snakedude56

Ok I don't know if this has been answered yet, but I'm gonna ask again if it was. If the superball is bred for a long enough time, will it eventually become its own specie of snake? seperate from either a ball python or a blood python? Or does that only count if it occurs in the wild without human interference?

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Thats a good question, furthermore how may generations have to pass before it would be its own species.

The person who made the first cross also made the decision for future herpers that they can't be sure of having a 100% ball python. Maybe that’s not important to you or I but it might be to someone someday and it’s just a matter of time before decedents of integrates show up as possible new morph ball pythons.

But I suppose you could say the same thing about the morphs, no one can be sure of having a 100% wild type ball. I want the morph genes but maybe someone will not want them.

I'm reading all these posts that say how amazing these animals are, and honestly I just don't see the allure. I've never really been a big fan of blood pythons though, so maybe that's why I don't like them. I've also never been a big fan of hybrids either. In fact I've cut way back on my corn snakes because I thought the hybridizers were mucking them up too much. I have seen a number of 'kingsnakes' coming into our herp society adoption program that looked like they had a lot of corn snake influance in them, an unsuspecting person might have their pure kingsnake project messed up by including some of these unusual looking snakes in their breeding program. I've even been burned by this myself. I once bought an 'unusual' looking pair of pine snakes. Lighter in color then other pine snakes. Once I raised them up and produced offspring, it was pretty obvious that they were actually pine snake X bullsnake hybrids. It was a lot of wasted time on my part.

Hybrids are a fact of life, you can't put the genie back in the bottle again but I still don't like them. There is still so much unrealized potential with the pure ball pythons, adding other species to the mix just confuses things.

Mark

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

[...] This is purely a guesstimate, but I would say some hybrids are a great deal more likely to occur in the wild than some of the morphs we've produced in captivity.

Not many, and not a super ball. Most of the hybrids created in captivity would never meet in the wild.

Is there a potential for problems if they are released into the wild? Sure... just like the problems with Burmese being released in Florida creating havoc on the alligator populations.

I'm talking more of buying animals that are sold as one species, when in reality they are hybrids. After a while, as with corns, even reputable breeders can't know for sure what blood a snake has.

The only thing you can do in regards to potentially "bad" bloodlines is purchasing from quality breeders. Could you imagine one of the major breeders bringing in a genetically tainted BP, and selling the offspring as Ball Pythons?

I can. Look at the Spider mutation. If Adam's correct, every spider and morph that has spider in it has a genetic neurological flaw.

I realize why some may be a little hesitant, and I don't even question the fact that eventually bloodlines are going to be mixed, and less than honest breeders will sell them as pure. The only thing you can do? Take caution in your suppliers.

Again, once hybridizing a species becomes common, you can't be 100% sure what you are getting, even if it's from a reliable source.

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

By the way... I'd be curious to see how many of those that take issue with hybrid snakes would feel there is an ethical violation in breeding a German Shepard to a Husky? I'll admit, I originally saw ethical problems until I realized that my dog Milo (which is the result of the above mating) is nothing different.

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Dogs have reliable pedegree information. If I want a 100% Husky, I can go buy one and be certain that it's 100% Husky. Reptiles breeders and buyers don't have this luxury. I wouldn't have a problem with creating hybrids in captivity, but it's been shown that some people are not responsible with them, and it only takes a few people to muck things up to the point of uncertainty from that point on. For example, when I was breeding corn snakes, I saw a cage full of candy cane corns for sale at a local pet shop. Had I not known better, I would have bought a female, bred it to my Amelanistic, and sold the offspring as Amels. The pet store didn't mention that they were rat/corn hybrids, so if I didn't know, my customers wouldn't have known, forever. Since this happens, there are now amels, snows, Anery A & B, etc., etc. that are emoryi crosses, and no one can be sure that any corn snake is not a cross. Was this the intention of the first producers of candy canes? I doubt it, but once one or two of them leave there facilities, it's history.

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

...This is purely a guesstimate, but I would say some hybrids are a great deal more likely to occur in the wild than some of the morphs we've produced in captivity...

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Also, you can't create a morph in captivity. The original morphs are found as wild caught animals. Once in captivity, we selective breed and mix and match, but every morph started in the wild in Africa.

To wach is his/her own. I am not saying its wrong, now would I do it? No. but crossbreeding and breeding things for certain traits has been done for centuries. Example, dogs and cats you thinkg there were naturally little rat dogs that have to be given little sweaters because they have no hair? No, they were bred that way for some god awful reason. im not nesessarily saying its right but you cant get upset at a snake breeder and then look over at your little hairless dog or your bulldog for that matter and not have an opinion. if i am a little off on my facts i apologize but my basic argument holds to be true, im just to tired to do the actual research right now. lol.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Also, you can't create a morph in captivity. The original morphs are found as wild caught animals. Once in captivity, we selective breed and mix and match, but every morph started in the wild in Africa.

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Designer morphs (double recessives, dominant-recessive combos) are highly unlikely to be found in the wild. Supers are also somwhat unlikely to be found.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

One more point...are captive bred normal ball pythons that come from a long line of normal captive breedings 100% wild population ball pythons?

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Still havent answered this question......and to think their appearance wont change given enough time in capativity is somewhat naive.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Dogs have reliable pedegree information. .

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It's called a mongrel or mutt and I doubt the dog breeding world has no pedigree tracking problems. People are people. Overall, Mixed-breeds tend to have less health problems than purebreed dogs due to hybrid vigor. Furthermore,the selectively breeding rounds that give rise to the pure-breed dog tends to concentrate both good and bad genes. Hence purebreed are prone to many recessive genetic conditions. The advantage of purebreeds is that they have more specialized and controlled behaviors and appearances.

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Originally Posted by sg1trogdor

To wach is his/her own. I am not saying its wrong, now would I do it? No. but crossbreeding and breeding things for certain traits has been done for centuries. Example, dogs and cats you thinkg there were naturally little rat dogs that have to be given little sweaters because they have no hair? No, they were bred that way for some god awful reason. im not nesessarily saying its right but you cant get upset at a snake breeder and then look over at your little hairless dog or your bulldog for that matter and not have an opinion. if i am a little off on my facts i apologize but my basic argument holds to be true, im just to tired to do the actual research right now. lol.

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I hear you, and I understand that dog breeds are man-made for the most part. I just think it's different, because I can still buy a 100% Husky, or 100% wolf, or 100% dingo if I choose to, because of strict pedegree information. I would like to work with hybrids and create my own species of North American Rat/King/Corn over dozens of generations. I just would never do it unless there was a strict pedegree system in place for snakes, so I never have any hand in mucking up true blood lines.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Still havent answered this question......and to think their appearance wont change given enough time in capativity is somewhat naive.

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Thousands of WC and CH balls are imported every year to refresh the captive bloodlines. Most breeders prefer to use CH as much as possible when normals are used. Selective breeding can and does change appearances, but they are still 100% ball pythons, and if bred to a wild type, the offspring will pretty much lose most of the characteristics of the selective breeding. I'd have no problem buying a decendant of all captive bred BPs as long as it looks good to me and didn't exhibit and physical or neurological flaws. Line bred captive or not, it's a bnall python.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I hear you, and I understand that dog breeds are man-made for the most part. I just think it's different, because I can still buy a 100% Husky, or 100% wolf, or 100% dingo if I choose to, because of strict pedegree information. I would like to work with hybrids and create my own species of North American Rat/King/Corn over dozens of generations. I just would never do it unless there was a strict pedegree system in place for snakes, so I never have any hand in mucking up true blood lines.

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As long as these snakes remain conserved in the wild without capative breds being released in their geographic range I would think you could be certain that you could get something 100% King, Rat, or Corn. It's called Wild-caught.....

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Thousands of WC and CH balls are imported every year to refresh the captive bloodlines. Most breeders prefer to use CH as much as possible when normals are used. Selective breeding can and does change appearances, but they are still 100% ball pythons, and if bred to a wild type, the offspring will pretty much lose most of the characteristics of the selective breeding. I'd have no problem buying a decendant of all captive bred BPs as long as it looks good to me and didn't exhibit and physical or neurological flaws. Line bred captive or not, it's a bnall python.

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That's like saying a dog (Canis familiaris) and a wolf (Canis lupus) are the same. The former I've owned, the latter remains in the wild for me. This is a new hobby but given enough time there will be significant differences between wild and capative bred populations that will make it difficult to produce a wild-like/looking offspring from a WC x CBB crossing.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

As long as these snakes remain conserved in the wild without capative breds being released in their geographic range I would think you could be certain that you could get something 100% King, Rat, or Corn. It's called Wild-caught.....

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I could get a WC corn, but I'm mostly interested in corns because of all the amazing morphs out there. I wouldn't be interested in starting with wild caught animals and trying to duplicate all the work that people like Kathy Love and Rich Z. have done. Like I said before, it would be tough to buy a pair of snows, and know that they aren't emoryi crosses. It's too bad that's the case.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

That's like saying a dog (Canis familiaris) and a wolf (Canis lupus) are the same. The former I've owned, the latter remains in the wild for me. This is a new hobby but given enough time there will be significant differences between wild and capative bred populations that will make it difficult to produce a wild-like/looking offspring from a WC x CBB crossing.

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I'm just saying there are dog and wolf hybrids, but there are still pure breds that can be identified through generations and generations of paper work. I also think that since people consider it a good thing to import fresh bp lines, normal balls in captivity will not morph into a different creature. diverse, fresh blood is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Like I said before, it would be tough to buy a pair of snows, and know that they aren't emoryi crosses. It's too bad that's the case.

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Perhaps I dont understand why this is such an issue for you. As long as the animal is healthly and you like the appearance what with this obessive need to know the minute details of its "bloodline" and as you call it?

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I'm just saying there are dog and wolf hybrids, but there are still pure breds that can be identified through generations and generations of paper work. I also think that since people consider it a good thing to import fresh bp lines, normal balls in captivity will not morph into a different creature. diverse, fresh blood is a good thing.

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Isnt a kind of directional selection going on over in Africa though? Anything that looks different is capatured and sent over to a developed country. Anything that's a possible morph is sent over here. That is likely to have a bottleneck effect on the population over in Africa.