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Finally PICTURES!!

well i geuss i cant lock this post so i dont know what else to do but to tell everyone to stop posting and let this argument go..... i will not post back to any replys. Please dont post anymore as there is no reason to argue anymore and make this a bigger deal. thanks BBB.
 
A lot of threads meander around in topic. :sobstory: You can unsubscribe to this thread if you do not wish to continue getting notifications every time someone posts here.
 
Just to add my $0.02, I don't think those snakes are fat at all, they just look well fed to me. I have a friend who says he likes to keep his snakes "a little on the thin side it's more natural". I tell him he's just to cheap to feed them.
 
:-offtopic ;)
Indeed BBE, this comment isn't pertaining to your snakes, but rather, to the tangent discussions... feel free to ignore.

I'm with Serp. The only reason I'm going to be careful about breeding F1 hybrids to other F1 hybrids is because I know *other* people find "hybrids" a big deal, and I don't want to produce snakes that can't find a good home, or that might be later passed on under false pretenses.
But frankly, to me, a healthy pretty snake is a healthy pretty snake. Any definition of "pure" you come up with is arbitrary; nature doesn't care if a snake is a hybrid or not but rather if it's healthy and viable, and I'm sure there's plenty of hybrids running around in the wild population.
No, it's not the driving force of evolution (natural selection is!) but it's not a blockaid in it either. Evolution goes with whatever works, be it hybrid or "pure".

I once got in a hybrid discussion with someone who was strongly against hybrids and one of the things they said was "I knew someone who had a hybrid dumped on him. Rather than sell it or give it away and have a hybrid come from him, he chose to kill it." as some sort of argument as to why hybrids are bad. I think this argues rather more strongly against this attiude that hybrids are anathama, as someone chose to kill a perfectly heathy snake simply because it was "impure". :mad:
 
To add...

Some further thoughts:
There is one distinct advantage with "purity" for breeders (and by purity I mean genetic homogeneity in your chosen population) and that is predictability of offspring. If your adults all have the same genes, the babies will look exactly like the adults.
There are, of course, massive disadvantages to genetic homogeneity; detremental resessive alleles come in to play, and who knows how many genes work best when paired with a different allele (heterozygote advantage). The bloodred population, when first developed, used to be very "pure" from inbreeding, but was notorious for all the problems it had too. Etc etc.

Plus I think it's kind of fun to not know percicely what's going to come out of an egg :)
 
Silvergrin said:
No, it's not the driving force of evolution (natural selection is!) but it's not a blockaid in it either. Evolution goes with whatever works, be it hybrid or "pure".
Click to expand...

This actually begs the question: "Is natural selection a good theory?" I'm not sure how big of a role natural selection plays against human interference. Is it natural selection for a snake to slither onto a road and get run over? Is it natural selection for the deer to get shot in the head? Was it natural selection that almost killed off the bald eagles? This is a serious question. Darwanism hangs almost soley on that one theory. How much of that theaory is actually true anymore? With all the crap that humans are throwing into the environment, is it not starting to show that theory as somenthing that is out-dated? If this theory really is going to be rejected for the simple fact that humans are destroying the ecosystem, then would we not have to reject the theory of evolution as well? Would rejecting the theory of evolution will also enevitibly lead to the fact that hybridization cannot be wrong on any level?
 
E. g. guttata said:
If this theory really is going to be rejected for the simple fact that humans are destroying the ecosystem, then would we not have to reject the theory of evolution as well? Would rejecting the theory of evolution will also enevitibly lead to the fact that hybridization cannot be wrong on any level?
Click to expand...
If we develop the technology to change the orbit of the moon, and do so, does this negate the theory of gravity?

The process of natural selection comes from "those that are disadvantaged are more likely to be deselected, and those that are more advantaged are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation." This, alongside "random mutation" are the driving forces behind evolution.

If humans are part of the environment (which we are) then our presence will affect the course of evolution by altering the "selection criteria." Some species will dwindle and/or die off, and others (such as rats, mice, cockroaches, and seagulls) will prosper. But it will not invalidate the process as a whole.

Animals will still reproduce offspring and be more/less likely to do so based on how well-adapted they are to their environment. Random changes will still occur within each new generation and selection pressures will apply. Thus, the criteria for evolution are still present, so the process will continue.

In order to stop evolution, you would have to remove either reproduction, selection, or mutation. And even if you did that from some point in time forward, it would not invalidate what had happened up to that point. :)
 
Can we discuss evolution vs. creation while we are at it too? Just kiddding!!! :sidestep:

Actually I saw this post come back up and wanted to apologize for getting on a soapbox about hybrids. I didn't really know what I was talking about, and I'll admit it. I actually didn't even read the entire thread, just the part about why isn't this being dropped. I almost went back and deleted my posts, but I'm not ashamed to say I goofed. :shrugs: I shoulda done more research before I started typing! I've just been irritated with the pet stores selling creamsicles as corns . . . and now I realize that's sort of for debate. Anyway, I decided there's a cure for that - stay out of pet stores!!! :rolleyes: Plus I was temporarily involved in the ugly, ugly world of purebred dogs there for a while. I've been trying to get it straight in my head that a snake is NOT a dog. And thank goodness for that!

I'm still LOL about "every cornsnake exploding on a cellular level someday because someone did not know that their snake had "impure" ancestry." :blowup: Thanks for that. Anyhow, I am sorry if I offended anyone . . . no more soapboxes for me for a while . . .
 
Serpwidgets said:
Animals will still reproduce offspring and be more/less likely to do so based on how well-adapted they are to their environment. Random changes will still occur within each new generation and selection pressures will apply. Thus, the criteria for evolution are still present, so the process will continue.
Click to expand...

Does this mean that some day there will be deer with bullet-proof skin?? What will that do to the hungint industry? :twoguns: LOL Loved the post Serp. I learn more from you and CAV than I ever did in high school. And I love all the philosophical questions. hehehehe
 
Gutta -- yes, humans can influence "natural selection". I suppose one *might* call it "human selection" instead of "natural selection" since an environment without humans and one with select for very different things.
I don't see why we're arguing about hunting and deer, but since you asked (even though I don't think you are serious, but you asked...) no, deer wouldn't evolve bullet-proof skin. Well, they might if they could, but it's just plain old unlikely a collection of mutations like that will suddenly crop up any time soon! No, deer might evolve to have no antlers (if hunters always go for the ones with the biggest racks) or, if overhunted, might go extinct. Extinction is part of natural selection too.
Darwinism explains pretty much everything seen in ecology and biology. If you want to talk about how *people* fit in with darwinism... The thing is, we humans are able to see the patterns, and we are able to decide not to out-compete everything and overkill our prey, etc etc. We know better, now, if we don't want to make things unplesant for ourselves. Thus darwinism as an excuse to do whatever the hell we want to the environment, or even other people (wasn't "social darwinism" used to justify slavery and what not at some point?) is moot.
All I'm saying is that the difference between a "pure" animal and an "impure" one is an artificial construct :shrugs: As serp says, the animal itself isn't going to explode at some point!
 
E. g. guttata said:
Does this mean that some day there will be deer with bullet-proof skin?? What will that do to the hungint industry? :twoguns: LOL Loved the post Serp. I learn more from you and CAV than I ever did in high school. And I love all the philosophical questions. hehehehe
Click to expand...
As far as being run over by cars, this would only be significant if there were something non-random about which individuals get run over by cars. ;)

In the short term, hunting (if it is a serious enough factor) adds selection pressure. This will not so much affect things by adding new genes to expand the pool and find new advantages, the mutation rate will stay the same. What would happen is a narrowing of the existing pool based on what is already present. The "immediate" effect of severe pressure is short-term adaptation. But this could also, over the long term, affect which new mutations would be advantageous for survival/reproduction in that different environment.

I've found that it's easier to grasp if you look at it this way: mutation expands the gene pool randomly, selection narrows it preferentially.

What is "preferred" does not stay the same throughout time because the environment (same species, other species, their food sources, plant life, etc) is always changing.

The "preferential" part (selection pressure) is why the gene pool will change directions, and/or diverge. If there is no preference, then the gene pool simply gets more and more diverse in every generation because new mutations are more likely to be able to stick around. (This is what happens after a catastrophe like mass extinction, and why life "rebounds" with such a vast array of new species cropping up in a relative hurry. Then they hit critical mass and have to seriously compete for resources and a lot of stuff goes extinct.)
 
pregnant?

Your normal looks like a HYPO? I too have a jungle with those similiar marking and color. She is a CA KING X AMEL CORN. I'm in Fresno too.

Franklin
 
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