# Mutations, Hybrids and Morphs - How far is too far for you?



## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Just something I'd like to know about the other denizens of RFUK - what you* personally* think is "acceptable" to breed in terms of morphs and mutations, and what you think is "going too far".

The question sprang to mind after a discussion in Snakes - Help and Chat about the prices of Kahl and Sharp albinos took a bit of a tangent... 

So, in the poll above, tick what you think is UNACCEPTABLE to breed for - the things you'd never breed or buy yourself, and don't like the idea of other people breeding either.

Debate is more than welcome, but please try not to totally slate other people for their choices!


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## purpleskyes (Oct 15, 2007)

I seen a picture of a derma ball python? Which has scales missing so its body is half scaled and half scaleless I do think thats wrong and shouldnt be breed from.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Why specifically the Dermaballs, Purpleskyes? They still have belly scutes, and there's no evidence their quality of life is less 

And why are intergeneric hybrids (which would be like "Royal Python X Burmese" - both are genus _Python_) bad, but hybrids that are outside the same genus - like a corn snake to a California kingsnake (one's _Pantherophis_, a ratsnake - the other is _Lampropeltis_, much more distantly related) ok?


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## Athravan (Dec 28, 2006)

Sometimes there is a fine line between enhancing nature and playing god.

Basically I find colours acceptable but not interbreeding species, I consider colours to be enhancing what is possible in nature but extremely unlikely to ever occur by random chance, but I think deliberately cross breeding species is playing God to create something new, often in the name of money.

Things that are detrimental to the animals welfare, causes physical problems or pain I am obviously against.


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## purpleskyes (Oct 15, 2007)

Ssthisto said:


> Why specifically the Dermaballs, Purpleskyes? They still have belly scutes, and there's no evidence their quality of life is less
> 
> And why are intergeneric hybrids (which would be like "Royal Python X Burmese" - both are genus _Python_) bad, but hybrids that are outside the same genus - like a corn snake to a California kingsnake (one's _Pantherophis_, a ratsnake - the other is _Lampropeltis_, much more distantly related) ok?


I am not into snakes tbh I just dont think a reptile with scales should be breed to be without scales, I dont like those scaleless breadies either. Maybe people think the burm to a ball python is wrong because of the massive size difference?


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## blackdragon (Jun 27, 2008)

i dont mind any hybrids or morphs as they are breeding for home collections or pets not to be let loose in the wild but i would draw the line when the animal is physicaly worse off because of breeding but also understand that sometimes problems will not be known untill after its been tryed so could forgive that but to keep doing it even tho you know it makes unhealthy animals would be wrong


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## HadesDragons (Jun 30, 2007)

I personally would say that it's too broad a subject to condense down into categories / a poll - most people's initial reaction to something like a "mutation that affects the bone structure" would be (and so far has been) a negative one.

How about selective breeding? German Giant BDs are reported as having "broader heads" than usual. Something like that is brought about by the combined influence of several mutations (remember, change is brought about by mutations - however big or small they may be). Thus a German Giant BD could be said to have "affected bone structure" - a series of mutations combine to make the proportions of the head different from a wild _P. vitticeps_. The same could be said of their reputed "feistiness" - that's a "morph" that's linked to "minor behaviour changes". Several cornsnake morphs are associated with increased fiestiness; for those who are opposed to colour morphs that change the bahaviour, are these unacceptable (bearing in mind the change in behaviour could be due to the founder effect rather than anything to do with the gene itself as all offspring are descended from one original mutant).

As Christy said, it's a very fine, very grey line between acceptable and not - I personally would judge something on how it affects the organism in question, rather than trying to shoehorn the various types of mutation into pretty broad categories...


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## toyah (Aug 24, 2006)

I found the "body" mutation section quite difficult to judge my feelings on as the questions are quite vague and could cover so many variations.

Size-wise, one major gene that doubles the overall size of the animal I'd probably not want to see, as it would no doubt result in reduced lifespan. But a gene that reduced (or increased) the overall size by, say, 25-50% might prove interesting without unwanted side-effects. Selective breeding for (minor mutations that cause) larger or smaller overall size I imagine wouldn't prove a major issue or something I'd be opposed to either.

Skin mutations - say we had a gene that changed the amount a hognose's scales were keeled, to make "smooth" western hognoses. That might be interesting and not damaging to the animal. Difficult to lump all of the entire theoretical scale changes we might see in the future into one category, certainly. Not something I can say that appeals to me, but it doesn't hurt to keep an open mind.

Bone structure mutations - are we talking about one major "brachycephalic" gene, or multiple generations of breeding producing a particular head or body shape within a snake? One I wouldn't agree with; the other is almost unavoidable, as even if you're not selecting, minor modifier genes will exist and be passed down...


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## yellow_rat_gal (Mar 24, 2007)

I can't remember the name, but a while ago I stumbled across people who bred scale-less bearded dragons, which due to having no scales/protection, the head and UV had to be lower.

That I didn't like one bit, and I could see they would be burnt/harmed a lot easier than your average bearded dragon!


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## Akua_Ko_Nalu (Feb 15, 2007)

Personally, I ticked all but one box for Hybrids, and that was for locality between the same species. I think this depends on the species, with Boas for example, nowadays, it's hard to distinguish between them.

However, I answered with regards to Blood Pythons, you can easily breed a Bangka Island Red Blood Python with a mainland Red Blood Python, as they are only geographically separated, the Bangka's tend to be more aggressive and bigger, but that's no issue.

With regards to colour morphs, I feel anything that is proven to throw out deformed offspring should be avoided, I do keep Spiders and breed from them, however I have chosen my Spiders which have the least amount of "wobbling" possible. It is hardly noticeable, even when excited, but all Spiders do have it to varying degrees.

And with regards to the body of animals, I feel that size, such as Dwarf Reticulated and Dwarf Burmese Pythons are okay to breed into other colours etc, as they are a natural occurance. I don't however, agree with breeding animals to effect the physical condition of skin, scaleless animals etc, is just plain wrong to me, it totally redesigns mother nature, same goes to skeletal structures.


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Out of curiosity, would it change your opinion if I specified some "examples" of what *I* was thinking about when I set up the poll (since it wouldn't let me put the examples into the poll system) ?

*I don't think ANY mutations, morphs or hybrids are acceptable.*
Examples: Only wildtype animals of the _most common phenotype present_ in the wild. 

*Hybrids: Locality crosses between the same species* 
Not just crosses like "Hogg Island Boa to Mainland Common Boa" ... but also "Miami-Locality Cornsnake to Okeetee-Locality Cornsnake" - animals from different geographical areas that are not necessarily that different to each other except in colour or locale pattern.

*Hybrids: Crosses of animals which are the same species but different subspecies *
I was specifically thinking of BCI to BCC and Grey, Black, Texas, Yellow and Everglades ratsnakes - or the different subspecies of _Eublepharis macularius_ that have been repeatedly hybridised in captivity to produce the "Leopard Gecko" we know now.

*Hybrids: Crosses of animals in the same genus but not the same species*
This would be more like Great Plains Ratsnake to Cornsnake (both genus _Pantherophis_) - or Royal Python to Burmese Python (both genus _Python_) - or Bearded dragons to Rankins' Dragons (both genus _Pogona_).

*Hybrids: Crosses of animals that are not in the same genus* 
The big one I can think of is "Jungle Corns" - Cornsnakes, which are genus _Pantherophis_, crossed to California Kingsnakes (genus _Lampropeltis_). This also happens with _Pituophis_ (Bulls, Pines, Gophers) and corns. I'm not sure there are any verified intergenera crosses in lizards.... 

*Hybrids: Crosses of animals living in totally different environments or continents*
This would cover Burmballs or Japanese Ratsnake X Cornsnakes - again, not sure I know of any verified lizard hybrids like this.

*Colours: Any single mutation of colour or pattern*
Pretty much any single morph - albino, anerythristic, stripe, motley, pinstripe, name your choice. Most of these have been found in the wild, with wild-caught animals.

*Colours: Any Designer mutation combining more than one morph*
Things like "Snow" or "Lemon Blast" - anything that is the combination of two or more mutations that is UNLIKELY to have occurred in the wild (it's unlikely a wild Anerythristic corn would meet a wild Amelanistic corn and that then their offspring would meet and breed to produce wild-caught Snows).

*Colours: Any mutation that occasionally throws out deformed offspring*
There's quite a few of these - eyeless albinos, for example. Albino's known for causing eye problems in a fair number of species (particularly light sensitivity), but it doesn't ALWAYS cause visible ones, and you could find that 80-90 out of 100 animals are essentially "functionally normal". 

*Colours: Any mutation that is linked to minor physical/behavioural issues*
Minor wobbler spider royals (though see below), Difficult-feeder Bloodred and Miami corns, aggressive Blizzard leopard geckos, light-sensitive Translucent Beardies and VERY light-sensitive pale-coloured albino leopard geckos and so on.

*Colours: Any mutation that is linked to major physical/behavioural issues*
I consider Spider royals to be part of this group - not because ALL spiders have trainwrecky wobble, but having a minimal-wobble animal does not guarantee its offspring will be non-wobblers, nor does it guarantee that your animal will STAY a minimal-wobbler. Same thing goes for Caramel Albinos (spinal kinks) and stargazing cornsnakes (a tagalong gene with Sunkissed, although it is not actually PART of the Sunkissed morph) - or circling Enigma leopard geckos. 

*Body: Mutations that affect the size of the animal*
I must admit I wasn't actually thinking about DWARF morphs here. I was thinking about Ron Tremper's giant leopard gecko Moose, who died at eight years of age... far younger than his potential. Achondroplastic-type dwarfism would be something I'd group in here, too - animals that are not locality-bred dwarfs and that show oddities of proportion (short thick limbs, unusually sized heads) consistent with dwarfism.

*Body: Mutations that affect the skin of the animal*
Yup, I was thinking of scaleless animals here. Although I like Toyah's "smoothie hognose" idea too. And yes, it's broad in scope - is a change to the scales of a rainbow boa that causes it not to display the rainbow iridescence qualitatively the same as a change that causes it not to develop scales at all? I would say no - but if the quality of life of the animal is unchanged... 

*Body: Mutations that affect the bone structure of the animal*
Not just the SHAPE of the bones here ... I was thinking specifically of the Enigma leopard geckos, who may possibly have problems with calcium uptake - and which caused symptoms consistent with metabolic bone disease. But yes, I mean things like brachycephaly (short heads), dolichocephaly (long, narrow heads), dwarfed/shortened limbs, strange bone projections (like the "horned ackie" someone's got) ...


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

This is really interesting, and perhaps i missing this option, but where is: I think ALL of the above are OK?

I'm interested as to peoples understanding of the species concepts, or to be more accurate what are peoples species concepts with regards to sub-species and super species complexes, and what are these based on? I have a slight bias perhaps for this, but would be very interested in morphology explanations over genetic variation.

It is my opinion, and one that is not under represented in the literature that the Biological species concept is fundamentally flawed. This brings into question what we consider to be species, let alone the more contentious sub-species category. I for one do not agree with sub-species delimitation's, and so cannot class crosses between two such, as hybridization. Furthermore hybridization between species (or sub-species if you agree with this) is a valid form of speciation, and so I cannot think that this can be a bad thing...

Between genera, well undoubtedly there examples of this, but what becomes clear from these examples is that the classification system is not working. If these relationships were as clear as morphology (and some other methods suggest) then this could not happen. Again this is evidence of one of the flaws in the BSC, they are not reproductively isolated... so how can they be separate species? This is a slightly flippant question, but poignant in this situation.

Ok, so does hybridization occur in the "wild", the answer is a resounding yes. Where species mix without reproductive or ecological isolation they will hybridize. So can we suggest this is a bad thing? Or is that implying human morals to organisms not capable of them?
I know the argument that some of these animals would never meet, is a valid one, but never the less this process has occurred through evolutionary time (and this overcomes location in most cases), and will continue to. It is abundantly clear that individuals of the same genus from different locations are filling very similar niches, and adaptation therefore is low... my point here, is the main separator becomes location, is this valid?

I have a moderate exposure to hybridization in my daily job, and personally cannot consider it to be a bad thing is most situations (there will be exceptions), I do however think that most of the stigma attached to it comes from not understanding the facts.

Morphs... Well that is a little different. But if anyone read my review on inbreeding depression you may know that I am also not against this (again with some exceptions). My main point however is that is your fix a negative allele, you must purge the system. Then, within reason, the possibilities are limitless...

Andy


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

GlasgowGecko said:


> This is really interesting, and perhaps i missing this option, but where is: I think ALL of the above are OK?


*chuckle* Not ticking any of the boxes 

That said, the first option ("I don't think any morphs, mutations or hybrids are OK") is the equivalent to ticking all of the others.


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

Ssthisto said:


> *chuckle* Not ticking any of the boxes


No your right... but who will know my opinion...

Andy


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

I think your post very clearly explains what you think, Andy  I agree with you on most of it, to be honest!

What is your opinion on popular "colour mutations" that have neurological, balance or calcium-uptake-related issues - like the Spider royals?


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

Well unfortunately I would consider this a clear case of inbreeding depression. I am some what naive as to the genetics of the morph in question (spider royals), but would like to know several things: I assume these are all polygenic traits, if so what do we know about the position of the mutations. It is quite possible that one of the mutations is linked by proximity to a vital functional protein... This is not good, but isolation of the mutation may allow further selective breeding to eradicate the problem. Realistically, this is not going to happen. Gene mapping is expensive (but if anyone is willing to fund me, i'll give it a go!). In this case, without a much greater understanding of the problem, and realistic appraisal of the likely outcomes of breeding, unfortunately I would suggest purging. This is realistically what would happen if this morph were thrown up by chance. A depressed fitness, would lead to reduce or no offspring in F1... so effectively removing it from the gene pool. Oh, an by no means do I mean euthanize the animal, unless it is suffering.

As for the "popular colour" mutations with the suggested neuro problems. Again, the geneticist in me would like more information. The problem with this "morph" is that it occurred by chance, and as such it's genetics is VERY poorly understood. How can you design a breeding scheme when you have limited idea of the causal factors. I'll have to reserve full judgement until the report findings are released, and we know more as to what process is being affected, I heard some rumors that it was not morphological, but we shall wait and see. Bar the gene mapping to test for linkage disequilibrium though... I have to go with purging.

Andy


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## eeji (Feb 22, 2006)

I fluffed up my vote  i didn't read it properly 

The only two I readily agree with is colour/patterns and designer combinations. Locality crosses I don't really see the point in, other than people breeding 'because thats what they have' which throws out plain old generic normals.

Hybrids I don't really agree with - whats the point in them? just to say 'look what I did'? There are a lot of 'mutts' out there, and there are people who don't know they have mutts which leads to more being sold as pure when they breed 
If I buy a corn snake, i want it to be a corn snake. I have everglades rats on my want list too - i don't want an everglades x ****ratsnake.
The only exception I'd make is for naturally occuring intergrades. I know that puts everglades x yellow onto my OK list, but if i KNOW thats what I am looking at, then I can make an informed choice.


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## ern79 (Jul 26, 2007)

i will have to speak from the point of view of mainly pythons, particularly retics.
In general i think hybrids can be really excting from a visual point of view, i love bat eaters, jungle retics and think burm balls and superballs are quite fun, carpondros can be gorgeous although im not into arboreals, i think that carpalls are a bit crap also junglotts. I think that where the hybrid is too much like one of the parents then you can be looking for trouble as there is the potential for them to be crossed back in leaving unpure animals loking like pure, this is a bit tricky and could be problematic for future pure breedings.
While i generally view hybrids as a positive thing only to be seen as "designer snakes" i think that intergrades are a bad thing unless you are going for colour morphs, for example, i wouldnt want to breed one locality retic to another different locality but using dwarf localities to shrink the size of the colour morphs is fine in my eyes.


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## ogawa only (Jun 4, 2008)

ern79 said:


> i will have to speak from the point of view of mainly pythons, particularly retics.
> In general i think hybrids can be really excting from a visual point of view, i love bat eaters, jungle retics and think burm balls and superballs are quite fun, carpondros can be gorgeous although im not into arboreals, i think that carpalls are a bit crap also junglotts. I think that where the hybrid is too much like one of the parents then you can be looking for trouble as there is the potential for them to be crossed back in leaving unpure animals loking like pure, this is a bit tricky and could be problematic for future pure breedings.
> While i generally view hybrids as a positive thing only to be seen as "designer snakes" i think that intergrades are a bad thing unless you are going for colour morphs, for example, i wouldnt want to breed one locality retic to another different locality but using dwarf localities to shrink the size of the colour morphs is fine in my eyes.


i was gonna say nearly word for word what you said so...........what he said :2thumb:
steve


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## ladybird (Sep 9, 2006)

I think any mutation that causes minor or major physiological/behavioural problems (like spider wobbling in royals) is unacceptable. Hybrids between species I think are ok, as long as you don't breed those hybrids to anything.


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

ladybird said:


> I think any mutation that causes minor or major physiological/behavioural problems (like spider wobbling in royals) is unacceptable. Hybrids between species I think are ok, as long as you don't breed those hybrids to anything.


Just out of interest, why don't you think hybrids should be bred to anything else? Do you mean they shouldn't breed/ shouldn't be bred to either parent strain/ or shouldn't be bred to another like for like hybrid?

Andy


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## chameleonpaul (Dec 20, 2006)

Oops I did it the wrong way round, I did the ones I think are acceptable, sorry.


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## ern79 (Jul 26, 2007)

ogawa only said:


> i was gonna say nearly word for word what you said so...........what he said :2thumb:
> steve


glad to see im in good company:no1:


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## redheadkelj (Sep 25, 2008)

What you need to remember about this is that no matter how careful you are you will always get mutations. They occur naturally. How do you think humans got redhair?! How do you think we ended up with half the species we have now? They were all caused by natural mutations. It's all to do with that wonderful thing called DNA...!


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

Yup, everything's the result of SOME mutation... 

But it's interesting how people think about things like this


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## peaches (Apr 3, 2007)

It's an interesting topic, have clicked the bone structure one, doesn't sound great to me? Although, one I know nothing about.

Colour morphs, I have no problem with this, as long as there is not an abnomality linked to said morph.

Hybrids - now this is a weird one and more to do with gut instinct for me. Now take the cornsnake, this species has been bred, inbred, outbred, crosses, mixed etc etc so much that there is just generic captive bred specimins that in all honesty I wouldn't be worried with what you crossed them with.......now I don't mean that in a bad way, but this is a species so widespread, where there are people just breeding locales, good wild populations, people concentrating on morphs - it's not going to hurt this species number wise - not all will agree but that's my view.

Now a rarer snake that is not often seen in captivity, I see no real point to hyrbidize it at all. Also not keen on species that are extremly different with their husbandry requirements being crossed either.


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

Ssthisto said:


> Yup, everything's the result of SOME mutation...
> 
> But it's interesting how people think about things like this


That is exactly the point, peoples understandings of situations/ problems biases their reactions. I would suggest that if you were to explain the facts of each to people, their opinions may change.

Just a thought...

Andy


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

I'm actually as interested in the misconceptions and preconceived ideas of what each person reads in the options as I am in the "facts".

Hybrids, for example. How many people have said they don't like hybrids - even locality hybrids - but keep leopard geckos? The ones in captivity can only be guaranteed to be "_Eublepharis_ genus geckos" - not even specifically _Eublepharis macularius_, let alone a specific subspecies 

And with Spider royals, my instinct is "If nobody is willing to sacrifice animals from their bloodlines to find out WHY they are borked, then the responsible thing to do is not to perpetuate the mutation at all if ALL animals displaying the colour pattern also display the wobble/spin to some degree and their normal/non-spider siblings never do". Not popular - because people think Spiders are pretty - but then, I asked where other people draw the line, not whether they think that MY line is correct or not


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## GlasgowGecko (Feb 23, 2008)

Your right. I truly believe that with effort directed in the right ways many of the problems can be accurately identified, and a well informed choice can be made as to what the next step is. I was also serious when I suggested gene mapping would give possible clues. It would be much easier if there were any species with their full genome sequenced, but perhaps thats one for the future.

Unfortunately in this case I suspect that the current market value of these animals is too much of a draw...

Andy


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## ladybird (Sep 9, 2006)

GlasgowGecko said:


> Just out of interest, why don't you think hybrids should be bred to anything else? Do you mean they shouldn't breed/ shouldn't be bred to either parent strain/ or shouldn't be bred to another like for like hybrid?


Because then you're mixing up the bloodlines of those species and then people won't know whether their animal is 100% of one species or another. It gets too confusing


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## Maureen Collinson (Oct 6, 2006)

Ssthisto said:


> I'm actually as interested in the misconceptions and preconceived ideas of what each person reads in the options as I am in the "facts".
> 
> Hybrids, for example. How many people have said they don't like hybrids - even locality hybrids - but keep leopard geckos? The ones in captivity can only be guaranteed to be "_Eublepharis_ genus geckos" - not even specifically _Eublepharis macularius_, let alone a specific subspecies
> 
> And with Spider royals, my instinct is "If nobody is willing to sacrifice animals from their bloodlines to find out WHY they are borked, then the responsible thing to do is not to perpetuate the mutation at all if ALL animals displaying the colour pattern also display the wobble/spin to some degree and their normal/non-spider siblings never do". Not popular - because people think Spiders are pretty - but then, I asked where other people draw the line, not whether they think that MY line is correct or not



I lost my modship on another forum due to my very strong 'anti' views with the spider morph, and then felt compelled to leave that forum altogether. Some of you will have seen and read that thread. The spider morph is something I cannot ever come to terms with, and my heart breaks every time I think about this morph. I have spent a lot of time researching on other forums and joined Ralph's forum for this purpose, and Ralph convinced me that even when it is not noticed by many keepers that he has every confidence in the fact that he would spot something every time, and I believe I could too.

What I find very strange too is people's reaction to snakes with IBD, and how it breaks their hearts etc, to see the poor snake struggle so, but 'oh how sweet is that spider' and how clever the breeder is to have produced it. I can not figure it at all.

Mo.


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