Michael Glass wrote:There are a lot of fertile inter-genera (?) hybrids in Northern American rat snakes. Some of 'em will only mate being tricked under vivarium conditions.
An Example for wild interbreeding now from Florida.
Natural, Pantherophis guttatus (newst: they are Pituophis), corn snakes were distributed along the coastal ridges (pine ridge in the east and oak ridge in the west), where it is much drier and nearly never flooded. Patherophis obsoletus (ssp. quadrivittatus and rossaleni) is distributed in the humid to wet interior of Florida.
Due to the digging of large channels, with all the sand and rocks just beside the channels, P. guttatus now slowly enters the central parts of Florida along the dry ridges along the channels and interbreeds sometimes with obsoleta. And the offspring is fertile.
A typical example for different habitat choice. If the two habitat types become a network the interbreeding barriere is gone.
Mario