Quote Originally Posted by DennisM View Post
carpet x diamond is not a hybrid, they are the same species, morelia spilota. this is an example of an intergrade. these two subspecies also happen to intergrade in the wild where their ranges overlap. they're quite nice snakes.
not to say intergrades don't come with many of the same issues. the carpet python world is full of "who really knows what it is" snakes. many of the colubrid "hybrids" are also really intergrades of sub species of the same species. as others have noted, it can difficult to recognize this integration, especially when the original 50/50 offspring are then mated to just a single of the subspecies for a few generations. eventually you'll get to 1/16 and 1/32 ssp which can easily be mistaken/passed off for pure.