Quote Originally Posted by AntTheDestroyer View Post
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.
Except it can and has been proven. When polyploidy occurs in a diploid animal, that animal is infertile. Hybrid snakes have been able to reproduce. Thus it can not be polyploidy.

If snakes have pairs of chromosomes, and each parent gives one chromosome, the offspring has one set inherited from each parent. This means that it has one pair of each chromosome. Nowhere could it become polyploid. The number of chromosomes a parent has certainly does affect how the offspring is formed.


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