I get both sides of the argument I really do. I personally just love reptiles too much to snub my nose at any of them really. I love pure locales and hybrids alike. The thing is that hybrids are here to stay whether people like them or not because it happens in the wild and those snakes are every bit as likely to find themselves in captive populations as pure animals. Without DNA testing you really can’t say if a lot of these animals are pure or not. Some you can sure but so many have overlapping boundaries it’s just impossible to say 100%. We have found numerous wild hybrids over the years and it stands to reason that for every one we’ve found there are several others we haven’t which means they’re out there breeding on both sides of the line muddying up those “pure” animals some people covet so fervently. And when I say hybrids I dont just mean intergrades. Then you have the issue of incorrect identification in the hobby where animals that are closely related but separated by species or subspecies and end up being filtered into the hobby by mistake like Honduran Milk snakes and their sub species who’s scientific name I cant recall just now.
Yep hybrids are here to stay. Now I will say that I don’t see a point in breeding hybrids that produce sterile offspring, and personally if the clutches have a high mortality rate I’m not going to continue the project but that’s just me.
Here’s a fresh pic of a ½ Sonoran Gopher snake ½ corn snake het albino F1. Don’t think I shared this pic yet.
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