# Diamond Python Range?



## Gruni (Oct 13, 2013)

Are diamond pythons found in the escarpment area between Armidale and Ebor?


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## Sel (Oct 13, 2013)

No idea where those places are, but Diamonds are along the east coast,,from Mid north nsw (port mac) and they can be found as far south as Vic..although im not sure how common that is.


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## Gruni (Oct 13, 2013)

I'll be a bit more specific... Oxley Wild Rivers NP level with South West Rocks, north west of Kempsy.


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## Sel (Oct 13, 2013)

I googled that place, and now im curious. Its a bit inland..so not sure.. maybe you should go and have a look


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## Gruni (Oct 13, 2013)

Maybe I already did...


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## RedFox (Oct 13, 2013)

Diamond coastal intergrades should be around that area. I wouldn't think there would be diamonds. ???


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## chimerapro (Oct 13, 2013)

I would say the animals you saw were M.s.mcdowelli. Personally I feel diamonds M.s.spilota range ends at approx Taree with Port Macquarie animals being 100% mcdowelli. Others may feel different but when on a genetic level mDNA proves they are identical anyway so all eastern animals that are coastal/diamond/jungle carpet pythons are just habitat specific variations not anything else but that. Technically there is no impenetrable line ( the manning river system possibly could be a genetic barrier) that ends diamonds range and starts mcdowelli so your question is open to interpretation. I've found the nicest diamond looking mcdowelli carpets are found around the Bellingen region but I'd love to see pics of the ones you have seen in Oxley Wild Rivers NP.


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## bigguy (Oct 13, 2013)

They would be intergrades in that area. Pure Diamonds appear to stop just north of Newcastle and Coastal Carpets start north of Coffs. Basically any in between these areas are intergrades


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## Pythoninfinite (Oct 14, 2013)

As a resident of Telegraph Point, a bit north of Port Mac, I agree 100% with Bigguy. I've seen dozens of the local pythons on the mid north coast in the past 9 years, and between the two locations Bigguy mentions, every one of them has characteristics of both to a greater of lesser extent. None of them looks like a Diamond that you might pick up on the central coast or further south, or a Coastal that you might get from Coffs and further north, they might look close to one or the other, but there are always minor characteristics which give them away as intergrades.

Jamie


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## Zipidee (Oct 14, 2013)

I have spent years in that strip of World Heritage rainforest between the Barrington Tops and Qld border and I've seen all manner of mixes of these two forms. Back in the 1990's I saw what looked like a pure Diamond (but was probably actually an Integrade with mostly Diamond blood) in the Dorrigo National Park - in the carpark on the road up the mountain. The furthest north I've seen a confirmed 100% Diamond was Barrington Tops - in the Williams River area. The furthest south I've seen a 100% Coastal was in the Toonumbar Scrub, north of Casino.


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

I was in a bit of a mischief mood when I posted this last night as I knew it stirs up some heated opinions but it had been a long weekend and I was too tired to post a full reply let alone pictures. 

The full story is this... My mate and I were going on a camp with our sons and it was already after 8:00 at night. Going down a steep section of road and chatting away I thought I had a stick on the road and I was already almost on top of it before I realised that it was a snake and tried to straddle it but was sure I'd run over its head. I pulled up and went back up to see how hurt it was or at least ID what it was and there it was making its way back into the grass and a bit grumpy at me for disturbing its basking and nearly killing it. :lol: After a bit of a bluff strike at me and showing some patience while we got a good look it yawned and headed off again. Unfortunately the flash on my phone was on the wrong setting and in the torch light the pics don't do it justice but it was a stunning coastal about 1.5m long and the thickness of a fifty cent piece. The pale parts were a fairly bright yellowish colour and the dark parts were a caramel/toffee colour. I was so excited to see it and that it was unharmed.

A litle while later and now on the lookout I spotted another snake on the track this time about five and a half feet long and a lot thicker. We pulled up and this one wasn't bothered by us in the least. All it did was lift its head about eight inches for the camera opportunity. After modeling for us it waited until we headed back to the car and while I thought about what I could use to motivate it off the road it did a lazy u-turn and slowly headed back into the scrub. This one was what I would describe as a diamond, with the lovely green colour with the fine black outline around the scales. It had some barring in its pattern and some rosettes as well. 

Both snakes would be real talking points in any collection and the chance to see them up close like that kept a smile on my face for the whole weekend. On top of that, the water was crystal clear and we saw turtles on the bottom as well as jumping back in the water from branches where they had been basking as well as a good sized lace monitor in a dead tree in the middle of the camp site.

Tonight after work I'll host the best of the pics I have of the two snakes for everyone to have a look at.


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## thomasssss (Oct 14, 2013)

while where on the subject what are peoples thoughts on this guy , intergrade or not (hope you dont mind gruni  interested to see what youve found , come on show us some pics


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

Nice snake you've got there, shame about the grainy pics, you'll have to wait until after dinner for my the pics Thomas.


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## chimerapro (Oct 14, 2013)

bigguy said:


> They would be intergrades in that area. Pure Diamonds appear to stop just north of Newcastle and Coastal Carpets start north of Coffs. Basically any in between these areas are intergrades





Pythoninfinite said:


> As a resident of Telegraph Point, a bit north of Port Mac, I agree 100% with Bigguy. I've seen dozens of the local pythons on the mid north coast in the past 9 years, and between the two locations Bigguy mentions, every one of them has characteristics of both to a greater of lesser extent. None of them looks like a Diamond that you might pick up on the central coast or further south, or a Coastal that you might get from Coffs and further north, they might look close to one or the other, but there are always minor characteristics which give them away as intergrades.
> 
> Jamie


 
How can almost genetically identical animals intergrade? When the status of these two subspecies is in doubt with some taxonomists ect. I'm not having a go or starting an argument just trying to invoke discussion on the topic  Personally regardless of mDNA results if I was a splitter I would be inclined to allocate M.spilota M.intermedia (intergrades) and M.mcdowelli to full species status and if I was a lumper I would recognise M.s.spilota, M.s.mcdowelli and intermediate forms where their range overlaps and hybridisation occurs resulting in an intergrade. The third option being that both M.s.spilota and M.s.mcdowelli both have habitat specific adaptation types that are not intergrades as such but the subspecies themselves evolving to occupy a niche unable to be filled by the holotype adaptation? I think the science of nomenclature is flawed somewhat in regards to a species and genus can be defined as animals that are unable to produce fertile offspring as well as morphological, ecological and physiological characteristics. Mitochondrial DNA has thrown a spanner in the works of the taxonomic description process giving rise to an increased differing of opinion amongst us all in regards to what is and isn't a species/subspecies ect. I look forward to your opinions on this topic and I hope my uneducated attempt at giving a scientifically formed opinion is comprehensible to you both and all others reading  
Sorry OP if this was not the direction you had wished the thread to go in and I too don't wish it to turn into another "what is an intergrade" thread lol


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## eipper (Oct 14, 2013)

Ok..... 
There are two different ideas regarding the formation of species. One is known as the biological species concept (which has "rules" that include non viable offspring produced from hybrids, this actually take more than a single generation). The other is the use of genetics to separate species. 

The rate which species evolve is different according to environmental issues facing that taxon. So while you may not see a barrier to gene flow now 20 million years ago there may of be a sea there eg in Australia, the Eyreian basin. 

In the case of carpets it appears the the eastern Australian populations including spilota, mcdowelli and cheynei are very recently divergent and as a result genetically very similar. You are able to have significant morphological change but have very little genetic change. This is where the conjecture arises. The various carpet populations on the east coast look different so there is an argument to keep them split but from a genetic point of view they are the same and should be sunk.

IMHO I would like to see mcdowelli and cheynei placed into variegata. Variegata and metcalfei remain subspecies of Morelia spilota and diamond remain distinct. Both imbricata and bredli remain a full species. The reason for names this way is based on the genetics and the correct nomeculture.

hopefully that makes sense?

cheers
scott


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

It intrigues me that the snake I saw is considered significantly north of the accepted range of diamonds and yet it looked VERY diamond in its colour and pattern. Certainly the climate on the escarpment is very similar to that found around the blue mountains so I can see that diamonds would viably survive here. I know there is no clear answer and at the end of the day as I said I was playing mischieviously rather than posting a standard herping or I.D. thread. 

All I know is that both snakes were stunning! And, that I would happily have either one in my collection especially the diamond/intergrade.


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## ronhalling (Oct 14, 2013)

Lol up until we had this very same discussion about 6 months ago here in this Forum i was under the impression that our big girl was pure Coastal as the breeder said the mother was from Kempsey and the father was on loan from a guy in Byron Bay, I have now agreed after much rock throwing and after many branches being broken over my head that she is more than likely an Intergrade, although i have seen what i would describe as being pure Coastals in the Cairncross State Forest an Intergrade she will remain, Pic following  ...................Ron


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## Sdaji (Oct 14, 2013)

mtDNA really does mislead people! Completely different species can have 100% identical mtDNA. mtDNA has virtually no affect on traits like colour, pattern, size, scalation, ability to breed with other individuals, food preference, or anything else we'd recognise as 'traits'. It tells a bit of the story about the history of population separation, but that doesn't always have anything to do with speciation or local population differentiation.

The DNA which makes one snake large or black or spotted or striped or like to eat birds or have large teeth or heat pits or climb or burrow or have big belly scales to slither on land or keeled scales to stick in rock crevices etc. etc. is all nuclear DNA, not mtDNA. mtDNA isn't even in the nucleus (where the 'real' DNA is).

As far as the morphology etc. of species goes, mtDNA says nothing. The mtDNA shows that Carpet Pythons along the east coast freely interbreed and have probably never been separated, but that doesn't mean they can't differentiate (which they obviously have). It also shows that the term 'intergrade' is probably not correct to use for these snakes, because it is not a case of two different things which evolved separately coming together and making some hybrids while others remain pure, it says that they were probably all once the same and are slowly becoming more different along the span of their distribution - it's the opposite of what the 'intergrade' concept suggests is going on with these snakes.

With mammals the biological species concept (if animals can breed together and make fertile offspring they're the same species) works quite nicely, but in snakes it doesn't work at all; according to it *ALL* pythons are the same species. Reptiles have really weird and robust DNA, so the genetics rules don't really work with them. It's obvious that there are big genetic differences between Diamonds from Sydney and Carpets from Townsville, so the mtDNA being identical is clearly misleading. Because of the continuous gene flow and the probable recent divergence in traits between these areas there is probably a fairly small *number* of genetic differences between, say, Carpets from Sydney (or Gosford or wherever) and Carpets from Brisbane (or Townsville or Cairns or Prosperpine etc.), but they are clearly very big and important genetic differences. You can get two different species which are virtually identical to look at and in their way of life, but they can have a huge number of genetic differences. Or, you can have just one single nucleotide of difference (the smallest possible genetic difference) and have the difference between a black snake and a white snake, or a speckled Lace Monitor and a Bell's phase, or a large animal and a small one. Get, say, 20 of these sorts of 'big impact, small genetic size' mutations and you have a radically different animal, but that difference is almost impossible to detect with normal DNA analysis.

The geneticists don't like to acknowledge this because it makes justifying their claims more difficult, and would often invalidate the claims they want to make. Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of people misunderstanding what's going on.


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## ronhalling (Oct 14, 2013)

What He ^^^ said  ....................Ron


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

As gorgeous as that snake is Ron there are features missing compared to a pure diamond that the one I saw has. To me yours is more of a coastal than a diamond if you are catagorising it as an intergrade, if you get what I mean?


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## bigguy (Oct 14, 2013)

I once saw a intergrade at Sawtell that was rescued from a pre school. It looked almost identical to the Central Coast high yellow Diamonds that I have seen in the thousands, however, looking at it closely you could still see a few bits of carpet in the patterning. Less experienced herpers would have sworn it was a pure Diamond, but, as Jamie stated, it was still a intergrade that more closely resembled a Diamond.


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## cement (Oct 14, 2013)

Plus the fact that coastals can live in the wild here on the central coast, makes it even harder. I know of pure diamonds being bred in Mareeba, so the different subspecies can live in a different area if they find a spot with the right conditions.
For me, I have seen stripes occurring in carpets on the south side of Port Stephens. Yet further south, from at least the northern borders of the Central Coast striping does not occur. So in my eyes pure diamonds don't have the ability to stripe like integrades and coastals do. The same goes for solid banding.
So I call the start of the border for integrade/diamond Port Stephens. In this area and also just a bit further nth I know where there are breeding haunts of carpets at Treachery and Yegun and you can see snakes that look just like diamonds (not surprising).
Even line bred diamonds for reduced pattern, in my experience won't stripe. But, This is just my opinion and further breedings over the coming years may prove different, 

Thomas, yours shows a lot of integrade features, Gruni, yours is integrade.(because of the known location and it is bush not suburbia).

There are now diamond crosses turning up in the wild here on the central coast in suburbia. Escaped coastals in and around the suburbs seem to be the reason.


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

Thanks Cement, I was pretty sure it would be particularly as it was in very isolated country. As I said I'll post the pics after dinner, I'm still at work writing reports at the moment.


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## zulu (Oct 14, 2013)

Some pics i had to photograph from pics because i havent scanner, gives an idea of variation,the drab one was from near willwarrin as was one of the bright golds ,the other bright gold was from about 2 ks SW of Kempsey.


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

They are stunning zulu.


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## Norm (Oct 14, 2013)

I love a good intergrade thread!


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## Gruni (Oct 14, 2013)

Ok so here are all the pics form that night some I cropped to hopefully show up the head of the coastal a bit better...


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## thomasssss (Oct 14, 2013)

nice find gruni, the one on the road is actually very similar to some of the adults i find down here , is it just the last pic or did it have more of a greeny yellow rather than a nice light yellow ?


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## bigguy (Oct 14, 2013)

Nice intergrade.


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## Bushman (Oct 14, 2013)

Great discussion guys with some excellent contributions. 8) 
Gruni, both of those specimens look like _Morelia spilota_ natural intergrades* to me, although one appears to be more _M. s. mcdowelli_ like and the other more like the nominate subspecies _M. s. spilota. _The term Diamond Python is used too loosely in my opinion with many intergrades being labelled as such.
In my experience both in the field and by examining museum collections, the range of the Diamond Python is not at all a straight latitudinal one (at least in the north of their range). On the coast where the climate is milder, both_ M. s. mcdowelli _or_ '_Coastals' and 'intergrades' penetrate further south, down to about the Central Coast. Whereas quite pure looking Diamond Pythons can be found at higher latitudes further inland along the Great Dividing Range e.g Mount Royal, where I've seen classic Diamonds. 
There's such an enormous range of colours and patterns in _Morelia spilota_ that it's almost incredible that it's considered the same species. The phenotype expressed locally seems to have a lot to do with local conditions, whether it be vegetation type (like rainforest) or cold spots e.g high altitude, where predictably darker specimens predominate. There are also exceptions to the rule and through breeding Diamonds I've seen first hand that the range of phenotypes, even within a single clutch is quite surprising. I'm sure that this allows the best suited individuals in any given population to survive ahead of their less well suited siblings. Once again there are occasional exceptions to this trend with the odd specimen surviving to adulthood and going on to breed. The more one looks at this species the more complex it becomes. 

* perhaps for want of a better term, as Sdaji convincingly argues.


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## zulu (Oct 15, 2013)

Norm said:


> I love a good intergrade thread!



Yeh those i posted are intergrades ,i posted because people find them interesting
The natural range north for diamonds is just a little further than newcastle.


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## andynic07 (Oct 15, 2013)

Bushman said:


> Great discussion guys with some excellent contributions. 8)
> Gruni, both of those specimens look like _Morelia spilota_ natural intergrades* to me, although one appears to be more _M. s. mcdowelli_ like and the other more like the nominate subspecies _M. s. spilota. _The term Diamond Python is used too loosely in my opinion with many intergrades being labelled as such.
> In my experience both in the field and by examining museum collections, the range of the Diamond Python is not at all a straight latitudinal one (at least in the north of their range). On the coast where the climate is milder, both_ M. s. mcdowelli _or_ '_Coastals' and 'intergrades' penetrate further south, down to about the Central Coast. Whereas quite pure looking Diamond Pythons can be found at higher latitudes further inland along the Great Dividing Range e.g Mount Royal, where I've seen classic Diamonds.
> There's such an enormous range of colours and patterns in _Morelia spilota_ that it's almost incredible that it's considered the same species. The phenotype expressed locally seems to have a lot to do with local conditions, whether it be vegetation type (like rainforest) or cold spots e.g high altitude, where predictably darker specimens predominate. There are also exceptions to the rule and through breeding Diamonds I've seen first hand that the range of phenotypes, even within a single clutch is quite surprising. I'm sure that this allows the best suited individuals in any given population to survive ahead of their less well suited siblings. Once again there are occasional exceptions to this trend with the odd specimen surviving to adulthood and going on to breed. The more one looks at this species the more complex it becomes.
> ...


Even there is great differences in pattern in diamond pythons found at the northern end of the range to the ones found at the southern end of the range.


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## Gruni (Oct 15, 2013)

As I said I knew the second snake was an intergrade but it was such a stunner and people seem to get snobby about owning one instead of a pure diamond that sort of led me to doing this thread. I'm surprised you call the first one an intergrade Bushman, I took it to just be a very nice Mcdowelli, unfortunately the colours don't come out at all in the photos. 

Thomas as far as the colour of the second snake, the intense light from my Cree LED lightbar wash out the colour in some of the shots. The snake was actually a really vivid yellowy green, but definitely not the 'high yellow' seen in the other diamonds thread.


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## Norm (Oct 15, 2013)

zulu said:


> Yeh those i posted are intergrades ,i posted because people find them interesting
> The natural range north for diamonds is just a little further than newcastle.



Yeah Zulu, I mean that seriously, I love intergrade threads and there's some nice ones in your pics.
Gruni I agree with you, intergrades can be stunning snakes. I'm very fond of them, in fact I have more intergrades than pure diamonds. I have two very similar to the second one you found, very high yellowy green. But these originate from Fern Bay just north across the harbour from Newcastle.


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## thomasssss (Oct 15, 2013)

Gruni said:


> Thomas as far as the colour of the second snake, the intense light from my Cree LED lightbar wash out the colour in some of the shots. The snake was actually a really vivid yellowy green, but definitely not the 'high yellow' seen in the other diamonds thread.


yea sounding like it had a very similar colour to what i find down here ( had to ask but as i know photos wash out colour especially when flash has to be used ) ive got an old pic of one we caught in my backyard when i was a teen that was very similar , ill try to hunt it down but it will have to be a pic of a pic


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## zulu (Oct 15, 2013)

Norm > Yeah Zulu, I mean that seriously, I love intergrade threads and there's some nice ones in your pics.

Some nice ones for sure ,onley other areas ive seen quite a few was chichester state forest and the dam road ,looked similar to those from myall lakes in many respects.


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## Gruni (Oct 15, 2013)

So was the first snake I found an intergrade as well or not? What are you guys looking at to make your ID/decision?


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## chimerapro (Oct 15, 2013)

*Qld intergrade*


Here's a Toowoomba Qld intergrade. The "term" intergrade can be given to any animal with intermediate appearance. I think the term is used in the wrong context when referring to animals from mid north coast of NSW a better name/term would be moist forest carpets as they are not diamonds or a natural cross of two subspecies. Gruni the 2 snakes you saw were very nice Rainforest coastal carpets 

- - - Updated - - -


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## RedFox (Oct 15, 2013)

I personally think that the diamond coastal intergrades are some of the prettiest Morelia spilota. So much variety in both colour and pattern.


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## Sdaji (Oct 15, 2013)

Since the population of Carpet Pythons is (and by all accounts, DNA and otherwise, we can assume always has been) continuous, with gene flow along the east coast from Victoria to Cape York, how is any area more pure than any other area? Why is a Sydney Carpet ('Diamond') not an intergrade between a Victorian Carpet ('Diamond') and a Gosford Carpet ('Diamond')?

Why are the 'Moist Forest Carpets' ('intergrades') like the stunning Kempsey animals not pure, while Brisbane Carpets are intergrades between those and Prosperpines?

Sydney Carpets are just as much intergrades as 'intergrades'. Intergrades are just as pure as a Sydney 'Diamond'. 

How can it make sense to call something at the northern end of the supposed 'pure Diamond' range (a bit north of Newcastle, depending on who you ask) a 'pure' Diamond when they are clearly intermediate between what you find in Sydney and what you find in the 'middle of the intergrade zone'?

Perhaps people are comfortable calling something a 'pure diamond' if it has spots/'rosettes' rather than stripes and blotches, but of course that's just one of many visual traits they have, and there are exceptions deep in the 'pure Diamond' zone (though I've never come across an exception deep in the so-called 'pure carpet' zone. Then again, Diamonds always have at least a little bit of lateral striping, so even that arbitrary diagnostic tool breaks down.

At any point along the east coast (with some exceptions in north QLD where things get a bit funny in some places), every population of Carpet Python is quite variable, and generally intermediate between the Carpets north and south of that area. The Carpet Python populations along that range are not more or less pure. If we had established a big colony at, say, Kempsey rather than Botany Bay and Sydney was further north, with Brisbane still where it is, the original Carpets collected would have been from Kempsey rather than Sydney and they would have been the type we first named, and described. If Brisbane was where Proserpine is, we'd have a very different concept of what typical 'Coastal Carpets' look like (and because that's where the big population was, that's where most of the captive stock would have originated).

I think people are still stuck in the myth that there were once 'pure Diamonds' and 'Pure Coastal Carpets' and nothing in between, then at some point they started interbreeding to make 'intergrades'. If that was the case they would be hybrids, but they're not. This is just not the way it happened (and that's one thing the mtDNA does indicate to us). Things make a lot more sense and are far easier to understand once you realise that it's all one big continuous population and always has been. Imagine it as one big spectrum with white at the NSW/Vic border and black at the tip of Cape York, a gradual grey scale in between, and people drawing random lines along the coast trying to split up various areas (with animals and their genes flowing all along, completely ignoring any lines we might decide to draw).

I'm simplifying a little, but that's the basic way it works, not the 'there were once two types which later made hybrids' myth.


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## Norm (Oct 15, 2013)

Your probably right Sdaji, "pure" is probably not such a good word to use.


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## andynic07 (Oct 15, 2013)

Sdaji said:


> Since the population of Carpet Pythons is (and by all accounts, DNA and otherwise, we can assume always has been) continuous, with gene flow along the east coast from Victoria to Cape York, how is any area more pure than any other area? Why is a Sydney Carpet ('Diamond') not an intergrade between a Victorian Carpet ('Diamond') and a Gosford Carpet ('Diamond')?
> 
> Why are the 'Moist Forest Carpets' ('intergrades') like the stunning Kempsey animals not pure, while Brisbane Carpets are intergrades between those and Prosperpines?
> 
> ...


Very interesting and easy to understand. Going on this theory would you have all suspecies names removed and the lot called Morelia Spilota? If this was the case there would be a lot less arguments on this site.


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## eipper (Oct 15, 2013)

John,

Have a read of the Rawlings Python paper from memory they use both mtdna and nuclear DNA.

To be honest I am surprised of the reluctance to adopt the sinking of mcdowelli and cheynei. I think that eventually it will come around into popular usage but it may take time ....


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## zulu (Oct 15, 2013)

A humongous female carpet i caught on the wollongong escarpment several years back, was full of follicles . I suppose i should have left it there as they are all the same thing these days according to some.


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## chimerapro (Oct 15, 2013)

zulu said:


> A humongous female carpet i caught on the wollongong escarpment several years back, was full of follicles . I suppose i should have left it there as they are all the same thing these days according to some.


Now that's a sexy intergrade


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## zulu (Oct 15, 2013)

Layed massive eggs that big ugly carpet ,allot bigger than sydney type diamond eggs . The male with the stripe went onto show me just how much of a mess he could make of other males with vicious biting.
Dont know where exactly that stripey was from ,was supposed to be coffs harbour .


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## cement (Oct 17, 2013)

Sdaji said:


> Since the population of Carpet Pythons is (and by all accounts, DNA and otherwise, we can assume always has been) continuous, with gene flow along the east coast from Victoria to Cape York, how is any area more pure than any other area? Why is a Sydney Carpet ('Diamond') not an intergrade between a Victorian Carpet ('Diamond') and a Gosford Carpet ('Diamond')?
> 
> Why are the 'Moist Forest Carpets' ('intergrades') like the stunning Kempsey animals not pure, while Brisbane Carpets are intergrades between those and Prosperpines?
> 
> ...



I agree with this completely, only you don't take into account that there are certain places where a type of pattern, or a type of size, or a type of behaviour is or isn't seen, regardless of subspecies names or dna. They are all carpet pythons!
Yes diamonds do show some lateral striping along the neck at times. But as far as I know ( I will accept being wrong if you give me proof) not dorsally. This seems, to me, to stop at around Port Stephens. (Which is an hr nth of Newcastle.) Carpets further nth all have the propensity to stripe dorsally. Purity means nothing, names mean nothing, locality means a lot.
I have seen wild Central Coast diamond males combat. No where as aggressive as the northern brethren, and to be honest it was pretty lame, but the instinct is there to a degree, and it doesn't happen often. I've also seen the damage done to a male diamond by an escaped male coastal over a female in the wild. Which I have no evidence of occurring between male diamonds from the same locality to the extent of damage done.
This type of conversation always ends up unessecarily complicated, if your talking about wild carpets, locality is only important to coin a general term or name, which is how we descibe that particular animal. Generally those animals from the same locality will have a typical type of pattern, type of size and type of behaviour.


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## Sel (Oct 21, 2013)

Very interesting.. thanks!


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## wilburs1 (Jan 9, 2014)

I like the whole of the east coast carpets and have seen a lot of different colours and variations. Where I live there are some that look like diamonds some look like coastal and I've seen one that looked like jungle carpet but bigger.look at my pictures on my profile and see some. Just wish I had started earlier taking photos.


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