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RE: Photos of my Eastern x Western Diamondback Hyb
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by Cro on October 14, 2008
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James, you bring up an excellent point.
Many people consider the Eastern and Western Diamondbacked Rattlesnakes to be closly related, mostly because they are both large rattlesnakes, and both have a diamond shaped pattern.
However, those people are wrong. The two snakes are are not very closly related at all.
The Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake developed from a now extinct ancestorial form that was living in the S.E. area of what is now the United States. It was living here many thousands of years before the snake that was to become the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake made it to this Country from Mexico.
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Photos of my Eastern x Western Diamondback Hyb
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by ChuckHurd on October 15, 2008
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James,
I didn't produce these myself, but i have some future plans for them which includes the stuff that i do keep. one of the things that interested me about these snakes was the DNA and the venom. i have close friends that are heavy into DNA. they are loving the samples i am giving them from this and my other hybrids. another point of interest is going to be the venom. Dr Bryan Fry is coming to see me next summer while he is in the states. he will be getting venom samples from this one, my EDB x cane, and my cotton x copper. while there isn't too much of a chance one will ever encounter a natural edb x wdb, the edb & cane, and the copper & cotton are hybridizing in the wild. that is a fact. i have a copper x cotton that was collected in GA as a sub-adult, and my friend David Weathers collected a female edb in south GA few years ago that dropped a litter of cane hybrids. the edb you sent me is doing well. he has shed twice and he is beautiful. not a strong feeder as of yet. will not touch mice, he will eat about every third rat that i offer.
John, i dont really know the genetic differences in the edb & wdb. i know they are a close phenotype. i do not have the lab equipment (or time) to do dna research, but when we successfully reproduce a second generation of these, as we did with the copper x cotton, it will prove that either they are more closely related then previously thought, or (at least) the classic definition of the species does not hold water. we have already shot holes all in the species definition, and i expect to show these sp to be genetically similar enough to breed.
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RE: Photos of my Eastern x Western Diamondback Hyb
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by Cro on October 15, 2008
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Chuck, it is going to be that the definition of what makes a Species is what will have to be changed. All of the fertile hybridizations are proving that.
A Scientific Definition is just "Words" or "Theory," that has in the past been proven to be true, an invention of man. Folks tend to want to keep rules that have worked in the past, but sometimes those rules and theorems need to be changed to reflect new research.
The DNA work has already been done by others, and those two snakes are not closly related. I will try to dig up the publication about that. We had it posted here a couple of years ago.
It is all very interesting though. I would like to see Dr. Fry take samples of venom from both of the parents of the hybrid, and the hybrid itself, then compare the venoms of the three of them. We might see combined properties of both venom compositions, or, we might see that one of the venom compositions was dominant over the other one.
Best Regards John Z
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RE: Photos of my Eastern x Western Diamondback Hyb
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by ChuckHurd on October 15, 2008
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that is true, but supposing that the edb and wdb are not relatied is only an opinion also. sure, they looked at some DNA and they "think" the edb came from an extinct snake in FL, and that the WDB came from a snake that migrated from Mexico....but they do not know that for certain. They may very well have came from the same snake, got separated by the MS river and evolved into what they are based on there surroundings. The fact that cottonmouths, copperheads, canebrakes, and pygmies all inhabits the range of the EDB and WDB, leads me to believe they all overlaped at some point. we know, without a doubt, they are similar enough to breed.
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