DNA, Chromosomes and Chimera talk

[AntTheDestroyer]

This isn't a situation involving polyploidy. As far as we know all snakes have 36 pairs of chomosomes: 20 micro, 36 macro. Hybrids between python species occur successfully so often because of the similarities. Many of them are even fertile.

And its not the chromosome as one whole that codes for traits, its the alleles on the chromosomes that do. There are very many alleles that go into each trait that an organism possesses. Some hybrids may look more or less like one of the parents, but that goes for any organism, including those that are not hybrids.

And its highly likely that most python species have very similar hemipenes. Given that many can interbreed successfully and produce fertile offspring the reproductory organs must be similar.

I hope that this made some sense. If any of it is unclear or anybody has a question let me know!


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You are probably right polyploidy is unlikely but until it is proven that this mechanism is not the way snake hybrids are created it still is a possibly. The number of chromosomes a parent species has does not effect if the hybrid is formed by homoploid or polyploid processes. I believe in some polyploid situations after meiosis the number of chromosome is returned to the same amount as the two parent species, that is of course if they have the same number. Again it is unlikely that it is polyploidy but I am not certain the research exists to say how hybrid snakes are formed to say one way or another.