The reason I made this thead was because I was wondering as I said, about things which affect the actual construction of a snake. There seems to be a lot of criticism of the scaleless corns with people saying it it cruel, that it will encourage people to start engineering them in all kinds of terrible ways, and will make them ill. But I am not convinced those things are anything other than emotional assumptions....when most of these people would be quite happy to own a bulldog, or a goggly-eyed pet fish that swims upside down which is much more abnormal!
My main arguement against the idea of people all of sudden being given the green light to start breeding weird deformities is what else can you really DO to a snake? They have no fur, no legs/arms, no ears, no moveable eyelids... Really there is only the options of making it longer, shorter, fatter, thinner....There was the short tail thing in corn snakes- which people rejected and bred out, even though i don't think it harmed the snake. It's just a case of not wanting a stubby snake. You can get bug eyedness. And finally the most extreme looking- scalelessness. From what has been said by the people owning these there are not health problems. They eat, shed, breed just fine....therefore what is wrong with breeding such a captive animal? People's opposition is based on the extremity of the new look, and the idea that it MUST be wrong (just because it hasn't been done before....but it's ok with other animals we might own/like) but are there problems associated with the usual colour/pattern morphs which actually cause more stress to the animal than scalelessness, but attract less attention? I read in Charles Pritzel's book that the development of pigment is associated with the development of the nervous system,and therefore some colour/pattern mutations can cause various problems,eg with white/albino animals. I also have read that some super forms of certain morphs eg in royals are fatal so colours and patterns are not as innocent as they look.
See this picture:
http://www.weirdasianews.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/tree-man.jpg
Shocking....but do you know what it was? The simple wart virus....he's now been treated. It just goes to show that you've got to be careful not to overeact before you have thought about something properly.
Would anyone ever show an interest in shortening/lengthening the nose of a snake? I doubt it....You couldn't breed it's skin to be looser without immediate healthproblems I don't think, and besides it would be grotesque. But a basset hound is good looking? We are definately conditioned aren't we....? It's ok to see someone milking a mutant breed of cow with a huge udder it can hardely sustain, but if a woman (your own species, in our own natural form) tried expressing milk in front of you you would probably die of embarrassment or find it offensive.
Scale mutations could occur like perhaps missing scales, rough scales, abnormally large/small scales, flatter/more raised scales....but these may interfere in shedding and to be honest many professional snake breeders are vey respnsible about not breeding anything harmful to a snake's health, it is not the same situation as some of the unscrupulous people who breed dogs for showing for example. Even if sometimes people do put looks/money over total saintliness, I don't think to this date, breeders have too done bad at all.
Oh and last but not least, I suppose venomous keepers coud breed certain species to not have no venom glands..but how would you know they don't have them? Or if a snake eg the ETB has big fangs you could breed them smaller....possibly. But dunno it will happen.
Just doesn't seem likely...so I've made my case.
