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“Morphologically, lots of times if you have a hybrid between two good species, the hybrid shares the traits of both how that translates to behaviour I don’t know,” said Steve Johnson, associate professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida. “The ones that have this signature would have to be female and breeding to pass it on to their offspring,” she said.Īlso unclear is the impact of so-called “hybrid vigour” on an individual snake. The researchers believe cross-breeding occurred before the pythons secured their foothold in Florida. Hunter stressed that the genetic markers – found only in the snakes’ mitochondrial DNA passed down through the maternal line – do not mean a new species of super-snake has suddenly been unleashed on the Everglades. That allows for the best of both worlds in the Everglades, it helps them to adapt to this new ecosystem potentially more rapidly.” “You bring these different traits together and sometimes the best of those traits will be selected in the offspring. “When two species come together they each have a unique set of genetic traits and characteristics they use to increase their survival and their unique habitats and environments,” said Margaret Hunter, a USGS research geneticist and the lead author of the report. Burmese pythons are more at home in the water. That species is smaller, faster and arguably more aggressive than its big cousin, and thrives on higher and drier ground. Instead, they were surprised to uncover “a tangled family tree”, the genetic signature of the Indian rock python present in at least 13 snakes.

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