Cross breeding

[oopslala]

So I'm getting into this hobby recently and I see all of these cross breeds that look amazing. Piedball hands down my favorite I've seen. Anyways, I come from the fish keeping hobby and know that most cross breeding that people do in their tanks generally don't happen in nature, at least with African cichlids that I kept.

So I've been wondering do these snakes all cross breed in nature, or is it something that only happens in captivity?

[Jt balls]

from what I already know," The base morphs " such as albino, mojave, pastel, fire etc ( the list is huge) at some piont these mutations have a occorred in the wild natualy , however this is extreamly rare! So these snakes have to be found in the wild sent back,"usually to the US"and then are proven out genetically.
all of thr designer morphs that you see are just compinations of genetics from these base morphs.
It would be a extream mathimatical inomily for two base morphs to come across each other in the wild.
A point to note if you r new to this... but I belive its the similar with fish. The genetics behave difrently,for example albino is a ressesive genitic trait so to produce albino in the off spring then both perents must carry the gene! But then Co - dominant mutations such as mojave only one parent has to have the trait in order to pass on to the offspring.

Hope this helpes!

[MarkS]

What do you mean by cross breeding? All of the morphs that have been produced are the same species of snake, they just have a different paint job. That is not considered cross breeding. There are people who have crossed ball pythons with angolan pythons, or ball pythons with short tailed pythons, or ball pythons with burmese pythons, (all crosses that have been done successfully) Those are matings between different species of snake and are considered hybrids. That is a whole different subject that is often quite controversial.

All color and pattern mutations in ball pythons are natrually occuring and are usually called 'base morphs'. There are hundreds of different base morphs that change the looks of the snake in various ways. When you combine those colors and patterns in one animal those are usually called 'designer morphs' for instance when you combine the piebald trait (a recessive mutation) with the pastel trait (a codominant mutation) in one animal (which will take at least 2 generations) You can wind up with a designer snake that shows both the piebald mutation and the pastel mutation in the same animal. It would not however, be considered a cross-breed as the animal is still pure ball python.

[Tigerhawk]

I agree cross breeding would be like say breeding a donkey and a horse. As mentioned above the breedings for the most part are ball python to ball python.