Hybrid?

I don't know what the general feeling on hybrids on this forum are...I know I've been on other forums where people would freak out and start preaching at the very mention of them. I kinda think anyone preaching that has a dog is a bit of a hypocrite. It was after all human selective breeding that led to all the breeds of dogs we have today, so for those saying people are playing god by breeding hybrids...well, I guess they have wolves as pets.

Anyway, I'm kinda biased, since I own a hybrid, but all this rambling is leading up to a question that me and the hubs thought of this morning.

Has anyone ever bred or tried to breed and ETB and a red tail? They are both boas...considering all the python hybrids out there, I haven't really heard much about boas crossbreeding. Is it done at all? If not, why? Are they just harder to breed?

I'm just curious. I find all the hybrids fascinating, I love seeing how they turn out and am interested to see how many of them will prove to be fertile. So, it's just a question, I'm not knowledgeable enough to even attempt it, not to mention my BCI is a baby and I don't even own a ETB.

Any opinions/thoughts/info on this?

hey man i say go for it .. i havent seen many if yet any boa hybrids. as long as you can care for the animals if noone wants them i say give it a shot but thats my opinion lol

Well, as far as boas go, emmys and red tails are about as far apart as you can get. They belong to different genera (Boa for the red tail, and Corallus for the emmy.)

I suppose it's possible that they could produce viable offspring (I would have never thought woma and ball pythons could reproduce together, but then I saw the beautiful wall python with my own eyes) but it's a bit of a stretch. Especially since one is arboreal, and the other terrestrial.. but no harm in trying.. I have no issue with hybrids.

I think its fine as long as people don't continue to breed them. This is exactly how bloodlines get messed up. Keep hybrids as one-time novelty animals.

Dogs have organizations to make sure that if someone wants to buy a purebred Siberian husky or what have you, you can be sure you are getting exactly that. The reptile industry doesn't have anything in place that someone who wants to buy a pure amelanistic corn snake will get a pure corn snake. That's the main difference here. It's not so much making or owning a hybrid snake, it's irresponsible people who misrepresent them or are too ignorant about what they actually have, and muddy up pure lines to the point where you don't know what you're buying. Just look at a lot of the carpet pythons, cornsnakes, etc. And for the record, I'm not a huge dog person, but once I have enough land and free time I plan to get a dingo. :)

Depending on who you talk to, crossing subspecies could be considered hybridization. For instance, breeding a Boa constrictor occidentalis to a Boa constrictor imperator... an Argentine/Columbian. Or a sabogae to a constrictor.

Just depends on how you look at it, I guess.

I think there have been hybridizations between Corallus hortulanus and Corallus caninus... Amazon Tree Boa and an Emerald Tree Boa. In fact, pretty sure there has been... let me see if I can dredge up a picture.

Another interesting mix would be between the Candoia species and subspecies... I believe there have been some breedings between the arboreal and ground boas in this genera, but don't quote me on that one.

There has been a hybridization between Amazon Tree Boas and Emerald Tree Boas. It was featured in the March 2008 issue of Reptiles Magazine, I believe... sorry, can't pull up a pic :(

Also, another hybrid I thought of: Green Anacondas and Yellow Anacondas have been successfully bred together.

And I read on another forum that Columbian Rainbow Boas and Brazilian Rainbow Boas have been bred together to create viable offspring, as well.

All the above mentioned examples are between quite closely related species.. it'd be much harder to hybridize an emmy and a red tail.

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Originally Posted by Shelby

All the above mentioned examples are between quite closely related species.. it'd be much harder to hybridize an emmy and a red tail.

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Definitely agreed April! I was just throwing out examples of boa hybrids that have been created...

Of course, I was just clarifying for the OP. :)

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Dogs have organizations to make sure that if someone wants to buy a purebred Siberian husky or what have you, you can be sure you are getting exactly that. The reptile industry doesn't have anything in place that someone who wants to buy a pure amelanistic corn snake will get a pure corn snake. That's the main difference here.

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While I agree that there should be some sort of organizations put in place to preserve bloodline purity, that wasn't precisely the point I was going for. It kinda seems like there are two camps in the anti-hybrid people, those who are against it because of the "mutt" factor, and those who are against it because it wouldn't happen naturally in the wild. What I was saying, is that the people who say that hybrid breeders shouldn't be playing god, evidently don't care about humans playing god in other respects. You wouldn't be able to buy a husky of any sort, purebred or not, if humans hadn't bred them into existance. So in reality, all the dog breeds out there are around because humans bred wolves into the sort of animals they wanted. I.e, on principle, those who are vehemently against hybrid snakes should be against dogs as well, because they aren't preserving the purity of the wolf bloodline.

Just MHO.


-I can't for the life of me figure out how to quote two posts in my post, but anyway-

Ladywhipple, Come to think of it, I have that issue and I remember seeing that snake. Haven't seen the annies and the Rbs, though. Seems like it wouldn't be that far of a stretch, though, them being so closely related. It just seems to me that compared with pythons, no one's really done much tinkering with boas.

Yeah, isn't a cross between subspecies referred to as an intergrade?

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Originally Posted by spix14

Ladywhipple, Come to think of it, I have that issue and I remember seeing that snake. Haven't seen the annies and the Rbs, though. Seems like it wouldn't be that far of a stretch, though, them being so closely related. It just seems to me that compared with pythons, no one's really done much tinkering with boas.

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I think boas are fairly new to most people. Compared to pythons and the morphs that have just exploded from BPs and others, we are really just now starting to break ground with boas. Yes, there were people breeding boas back in the 80s, just like there were people breeding BPs. But the boa market seems to be a slower, steadier market... we haven't seen the explosion like BPs... at least, not yet ;) It's picking up speed, though. I say give it a few years... you're really going to see things start cooking, I promise!

Sorry, accidental repost.

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Originally Posted by spix14

You wouldn't be able to buy a husky of any sort, purebred or not, if humans hadn't bred them into existance. So in reality, all the dog breeds out there are around because humans bred wolves into the sort of animals they wanted. I.e, on principle, those who are vehemently against hybrid snakes should be against dogs as well, because they aren't preserving the purity of the wolf bloodline.

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Dogs were bred by humans from wolves, dingos and foxes. I don't like the comparison to dogs because there are the organizations out there to make sure all dog breeds are kept pure for those who want them. Dogs were also man made to complete tasks to help humans out, and whether people like it or not, the dog breeds already exist. Like I said I don't have a problem with someone hybridizing snakes as a novelty for themselves, but once they start changing hands and being sold in petstores to irresponsible or ignorant people, there is a risk of doing irreversable damage to pure bloodlines.
When I was breeding corn snakes I saw a pair of creamsicle cornsnakes in a pet shop. There was no mention that they weren't pure corns, and had I not known better and bought one, bred it to an amel corn and sold the offspring as amel corns, every snake traceable back to those clutches would unknowingly be hybrids. On the other hand, if a person decides they want to start breeding German shepards, he would get breeding stock with papers. There's no risk of weird offspring popping out a couple of generations down the road. Plus, I said I was getting a dingo, which isn't a man made breed. :)

And I agree with you. You would fall into the category of being against it because of the "mutt" factor. I was referring to those who are against it on moral, "That wouldn't happen in nature" grounds.

And good luck with the dingo, btw. Personally I'd love to have a wolf but I would never actually get one. Just don't have the facilities for one.

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Originally Posted by spix14

And I agree with you. You would fall into the category of being against it because of the "mutt" factor. I was referring to those who are against it on moral, "That wouldn't happen in nature" grounds.

And good luck with the dingo, btw. Personally I'd love to have a wolf but I would never actually get one. Just don't have the facilities for one.

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Ok, I hear you. I'd love a wolf too, but I doubt it will ever happen. I think a dingo is doable.