wild garters cross breeding in the wild.

[chris-uk]

And Steve...thank you for the info on the different hemipenises. I had no idea that different species had anatomical differences in regard to genitalia.

It's a picture from the garter bible, you haven't been reading your chapters well enough have you Marnie?

Most occurrences of cross-breeding I remember reading about have been between sub-species and therefore intergrades, @s opposed to crosses between species to make hybrids. I'm sure some interbreeding does eventually lead to a new species forming, but it's not going to stem from a single hybrid litter, more a case of overlapping ranges leading to frequent hybridisation. This also relies on the hybrid having some sort of advantage.

[Stefan-A]

Most occurrences of cross-breeding I remember reading about have been between sub-species and therefore intergrades, @s opposed to crosses between species to make hybrids.

Crosses on the subspecies level aren't intergrades, they're hybrids. Intergrades are individuals that demonstrate intergradation, which is a phenomenon within population ecology in which subspecies are connected by populations that share characteristics with both.