cross breeding geckos

I remember reading somewhere about it, I will see if I can find it.

I don't believe that Leopards were crossbred at all... I think they are merely selective breeding at its finest. I know people have, or have tried to cross with African fattails, but not too sure how that worked out.... Like i said, i don't think crossing is necessary, but who am I to judge what someone else does with their animals.... I wouldn't hesitate to ask WHY they did it..... but in the end... its on them.

OK well I can find it now, but I remember someone saying or reading on a website about them breeding leopard gecko subspecies.

Originally Posted by JoshuaTrana

Yeah people are against this but so many breeders inbreed leos? And I have seen pictures of deformed hatchling. Maybe it was taken to far?

Cross Breeding and Line Breeding are two different things completely.

Originally Posted by JoshuaTrana

OK well I can find it now, but I remember someone saying or reading on a website about them breeding leopard gecko subspecies.

That doesn't make it true.

I also cast a vote against cross-breeding and would recommend that you remove the gargoyle from the enclosure and get a seperate one, and perhaps a tank-mate

Ok really animals dont cross breed in the wild,do you have proof that they do? Animals in the wild stay within their species, some exploit the nature of others and make them raise their babies, but that doesnt turn a cowbird into a sparrow just because the sparrow raised it, the cowbird will still go on to lay its cowbird eggs in the sparrow nest. A species knows the qualities it needs to substain life,it doesnt look for them in other species, we do for it to suit out fancy,which is why we have so many dog breeds.

To establish line breeding, as said above it isnt teh same as cross breeding. Cross breeding would be taking a leo with a fat tail. Line breeding is findind the best colored trio. The babies from that trio, say you pick a single male from one mother to breed to the other mothers girls, OR they step out a generation or two, like take the male and bring in a few female, their babies going back into the orginal line to breed with the orginal mother or father. Cross breeding is inbreeding, it just swings in and out of the orginal gene pool to keep the colors you desire hatching.

Now I dont condemn people who do it(cross breed), and yes there are some really nice snakes out there that are cross bred, but I personally wouldnt buy it, heck even line breeding as we all know, animals like the bearded dragon are no longer exported, so it is pretty nessesary. We have a bird that gets boarded at out office every few month, a beautiful catalina macaw...a beautiful man made species. My personal opinion, and yes I know it is my opinion,not everyone elses, let nature do it the way nature would and keep breeding species to species.

Well, technically, you are wrong as far as the occurance of naturally occuring hybrids. One that comes to mind right away is a cross between a Mule Deer and a White-tail deer. The two interbreed on occasion, and there have been many shot throughout the years where thier territories cross. There was also a Bear shot in Alaska that was a Cross between a Polar bear and a Grizzly bear. Grey wolves, and Coyotes have also interbred in the wild. Coyotes will sometimes breed with dogs. Housecats have also been known to breed with wildcats, like bobcats an the likes of that.

Animals that are capable of crossbreeding are usually able to because they have a close enough genetic link because they came from a common ancestor, and somewhere along the line, things changed enough so that they changed into thier own species, be it because of location, or jsut nature happening. Life has a way of continuing, and given the chance, and the right circumstances, they will breed, and the young will be viable.

Found this interesting article while trying to back up my claims.... its a good read....

Hybrid
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

In biology, hybrid has two meanings.
The first meaning is the result of interbreeding between two animals or plants of different taxa. Hybrids between different species within the same genus are sometimes known as interspecific hybrids or crosses. Hybrids between different sub-species within a species are known as intra-specific hybrids. Hybrids between different genera are sometimes known as intergeneric hybrids. Extremely rare interfamilial hybrids have been known to occur (such as the guineafowl hybrids).

The second use of "hybrid" is crosses between populations, breeds or cultivars within a single species. This second meaning is often used in plant and animal breeding. In plant and animal breeding hybrids are commonly produced and selected because they have desirable characteristics not found or inconsistently present in the parent individuals or populations. This rearranging of the genetic material between populations or races is often called hybridization.

Ernst Mayr wrote of Gregor Mendel:

"He was uncertain about the nature of the kinds of peas he crossed, and, like most plant breeders, he called heterozygotes "hybrids". When he tried to confirm the laws he had found by using "other hybrids" that were actually real species hybrids, he failed. The use of the same term "hybrid" for two entirely different biological phenomena thwarted his later efforts."
Some dog hybrids (used in sense two, above), are becoming increasingly popular and are being bred selectively. In cats, term feral-domestic hybrid is often used to indicate a cross between the domestic cat and a wild cat species (erroneous because a "feral" animal is a domestic animal that has reverted to the wild state).

An example of an intra-specific hybrid is a hybrid between a Bengal tiger and an Amur (Siberian) tiger.

Plant hybrids, especially, are often stronger than either parent variety, a phenomenon which when present is known as hybrid vigour (heterosis) or heterozygote advantage. Plant breeders make use of a number of techniques to produce hybrids.

The Lonicera fly is the first known animal species that resulted from natural hybridization. Until the discovery of the Lonicera fly, this process was known to occur in nature only among plants.

Interspecific hybrids

Interspecific hybrids are bred by mating two species, normally from within the same genus. The offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents. The offspring of an interspecific cross may be sterile. Sterility is often attributed to the different number of chromosomes the two species have, for example donkeys have 62 chromosomes, while horses have 64 chromosomes, and mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes. Mules, hinnies, and other normally sterile interspecific hybrids normally cannot produce viable gametes because the extra chromosome cannot make a homologous pair at meiosis, meiosis is disrupted, and viable sperm and eggs are not formed. However, fertility in both female mules and hinnies has been reported with a donkey as the father.
While it is possible to predict the genetic composition of a backcross on average, it is not possible to accurately predict the composition of a particular backcrossed individual, due to random segregation of chromosomes. In a species with two pairs of chromosomes, a twice backcrossed individual would be predicted to contain 12.5% of one species' genome (say, species A). However, it may, in fact, still be a 50% hybrid if the chromosomes from species A were lucky in two successive segregations, and meiotic crossovers happened near the telomeres. The chance of this is fairly high, 1/2^(2×2)=1/16 (where the "two times two" comes about from two rounds of meiosis with two chromosomes); however, this probability declines markedly with chromosome number and so the actual composition of a hybrid will be increasingly closer to the predicted composition.

In order to calculate the chromosome count of a hybrid, determine the haploid number of chromosomes from both animals and add them together. The resulting number is the diploid number of the hybrid. Example: an male donkey which has 62 chromosomes mates with a zebra, which has 44 chromosomes (all counts diploid). Divide the 62 chromosome by half (31) and add that number to the number of haploid zebra chromosomes, 22. The resulting number is 55, which is the number of the hybrid animal, a zeedonk.

Hybrids are named by the portmanteau method, combining the names of the two parent species. For example, a zeedonk is a cross between a zebra and a donkey. Since the traits of hybrid offspring often vary depending on which species was mother and which was father, it is traditional to use the father's species as the first half of the portmanteau. For example, a liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger, while a tigon is a cross between a male tiger and a female lion.Hybrids examples:


Mule, a cross of female horse and a male donkey.
Hinny, a cross between a female donkey and a male horse.
Zebroids

Zeedonk or zonkey, a zebra/donkey cross.
Zorse, a zebra/horse cross
Zony/zetland, a zebra/pony cross ("zony" is a generic term; "zetland" is specifically a hybrid of the Shetland pony breed with a zebra)
Dzo, zo or yakow: a cross between a domestic cow/bull and a yak. See also Bovid hybrids.
Beefalo/cattalo, a cross of an American Bison and a domestic cow. This is a fertile breed; this along with genetic evidence has caused them to be recently reclassified into the same genus, Bos. See also Bovid hybrids.
Zubron, a hybrid between Wisent (European Bison) and domestic cow.
Sheep-goat hybrids, such as the The Toast of Botswana.
Ursinae hybrids, such as the Grizzly-polar bear hybrid, occur between black bears, brown bears, Kodiak and polar bears.
Savannah cats are the hybrid cross between an African serval cat and a Domestic cat
Fertile Canid hybrids occur between coyotes, wolves, dingos, jackals and domestic dogs. Dogs and wolves may be considered the same species, making wolfdogs a non-hybrid.
Hybrids between Black & White Rhinos have been recognized.
Hybrids between spotted owls and barred owls
Ligers and Tigons (crosses between a Lion and a Tiger) and other Panthera hybrids such as the Lijagulep. Various other wild cat crosses are known involving the Lynx, Bobcat, Leopard, Serval, etc.
Bengal cat, a cross between the Asian Leopard cat and the domestic cat, one of many hybrids between the domestic cat and wild cat species. The domestic cat, African wild cat and European wildcat may be considered variant populations of the same species (Felis silvestris), making such crosses non-hybrids.
Cama, a cross between a Camel and a Llama, also an intergeneric hybrid.
Wolphin, a fertile but very rare cross between a False Killer Whale and a Bottlenose Dolphin.
A fertile cross between an albino King Snake and an albino Corn Snake.
At Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom, a cross between African elephant (male) and Indian elephant (female). The male calf was named Motty. It died of gut infection after twelve days.
Cagebird breeders sometimes breed hybrids between species of finch, such as Goldfinch x Canary. These birds are known as Mules.
Gamebird hybrids, hybrids between gamebirds and domestic fowl, including Chickens, Guineafowl and Peafowl, interfamilial hybrids.
Numerous Macaw hybrids are also known.
Red Kite x Black Kite: 5 bred unintentionally at a falconry center in England. (It is reported that the black kite (the male) refused female black kites but mated with two female red kites.)
Hybrids should not be confused with chimaeras such as the chimera between sheep and goat known as the geep. Wider interspecific hybrids can be made via in vitro fertilization or somatic hybridization. The resulting cells are however not able to develop into a full organism. An example of interspecific hybrid cell lines is the humster (hamster x human) cells.

Hybrid plants

Plant species hybridize more readily than animal species, and the resulting hybrids are generally fertile. Plant hybrids are often created in order to select characteristics from both parents in order to create an improved plant, by improving production of seeds or fruit, or to make a plant hardier or more disease resistant.

Unlike animal hybrids, many plant hybrids may reproduce, though there still exist sterile hybrids. Many plant species are the result of hybridization and polyplodism. Many plant species easily will cross pollinate and produce viable seeds, the distinction between each species is often maintained by geographically isolation or difference's in the flowering period. Animals, being more mobile have developed complex mating behaviors that maintain the species boundary and when hybrids do occur, natural selection tends to weed them out of the population because the hybrids can not find mates that will except them. Sterility in a hybrid is often a result of chromosome number; if parents are of differing chromosome pair number, the offspring will have an odd number of chromosomes, leaving them unable to produce chromosmally ballanced gametes. While this is a negative in a crop such as wheat, when growing a crop which produces no seeds would be pointless, it is an attractive attribute in some fruits. Bananas and seedless watermelon, for instance, are intentionally bred to be triploid, so that they will produce no seeds. Many hybrids are created by humans, but natural hybrids occur as well.
Some plant hybrids include:


Leyland Cypress, a hybrid between Monterey Cypress and Nootka Cypress.
Limequat, lime and kumquat hybrid.
Loganberry, a hybrid between raspberry and blackberry.
London Plane, a hybrid between Oriental plane and American plane (American sycamore).
Peppermint, a hybrid between spearmint and water mint.
Tangelo, a hybrid of a Mandarin orange and a pomelo or a grapefruit which may have been developed in Asia about 3,500 years ago.
Triticale, a wheat-rye hybrid.
Wheat; most modern and ancient wheat breeds are themselves hybrids.
Some natural hybrids are:


White Flag Iris, a sterile hybrid which spreads by rhizome division
Evening primrose, a flower which was the subject of famous experiments by Hugo de Vries on polyploidy and diploidy.

Hybrids in nature

Hybridisation between two closely related species is actually a common occurrence in nature. Many hybrid zones are known where the ranges of two species meet, and hybrids are continually produced in great numbers. These hybrid zones are useful as biological model systems for studying the mechanisms of speciation. Recently DNA analysis of a bear shot by a hunter in the North West Territories confirmed the existence of naturally occurring and fertile polar bear/grizzly bear hybrids. There have been reports of similar supposed hybrids, but this is the first to be confirmed by DNA analysis. In 1943, Clara Helgason described a male bear shot by hunters during her childhood. It was large and off-white with hair all over its paws. The presence of hair on the bottom of the feet suggests it was a natural hybrid of Kodiak and Polar bear.

In some species, hybridisation plays an important role in evolutionary biology. While most hybrids are disadvantaged as a result of genetic incompatibility, the fittest survive, regardless of species boundaries. They may have a beneficial combination of traits allowing them to exploit new habitats or to succeed in a marginal habitat where the two parent species are disadvantaged. This has been seen in experiments on sunflower species. Unlike mutation, which affects only one gene, hybridisation creates multiple variations across genes or gene combinations simultaneously. Successful hybrids could evolve into new species within 50-60 generations. This leads some scientists to speculate that life is a genetic continuum rather than a series of self-contained species.

Where there are two closely related species living in the same area, less than 1 in 1000 individuals are likely to be hybrids because animals rarely choose a mate from a different species (otherwise species boundaries would completely break down). In some closely related species there are recognized "hybrid zones".

Some species of Heliconius butterflies exhibit dramatic geographical polymorphism of their wing patterns, which act as aposematic signals advertising their unpalatability to potential predators. Where different-looking geographical races abut, inter-racial hybrids are common, healthy and fertile. Heliconius hybrids can breed with other hybrid individuals and with individuals of either parental race. These hybrid backcrosses are disadvantaged by natural selection because they lack the parental form's warning coloration, and are therefore not avoided by predators.

A similar case in mammals is hybrid White-Tail/Mule Deer. The hybrids don't inherit either parent's escape strategy. White-tail Deer dash while Mule Deer bound. The hybrids are easier prey than the parent species.

In birds, healthy Galapagos Finch hybrids are relatively common, but their beaks are intermediate in shape and less efficient feeding tools than the specialised beaks of the parental species so they lose out in the competition for food. Following a major storm in 1983, the local habitat changed so that new types of plants began to flourish, and in this changed habitat, the hybrids had an advantage over the birds with specialised beaks - demonstrating the role of hybridization in exploiting new ecological niches. If the change in environmental conditions is permanent or is radical enough that the parental species cannot survive, the hybrids become the dominant form. Otherwise, the parental species will re-establish themselves when the environmental change is reversed, and hybrids will remain in the minority.

Natural hybrids may occur when a species is introduced into a new habitat. In Britain, there is hybridisation of native European Red Deer and introduced Chinese Sika Deer. Conservationists want to protect the Red Deer, but evolution favors the Sika Deer genes. There is a similar situation with White-headed Ducks and Ruddy Ducks.

Originally Posted by Biscuit71

There was also a Bear shot in Alaska that was a Cross between a Polar bear and a Grizzly bear.

The bear was shot in Canada.

Its all the same... Alaska, Canada... its all just a suburb of the lower 48

Ok I didnt read that whole long post,but I argue anything on Wikipedia, I have found things incorrectly stated there, some of my professors have found things wrong on there, and several other people I have talked to have found things wrong with that site. I dont believe anything on it, even if there are some truths