It's all in the colour

[Morelia4life]

I can't stand ball pythons. I have had a few and I got rid of them all. They are boring, they don't do anything but hide in a ball, they are bred way too much and "cool" morphs are priced at stupid prices that only the richest can afford. I love snakes but I would never pay $20,000, $50,000 and up for a ball python. I happen to love carpet pythons and other Australian snakes. I think they are attractive, interesting, hardy, and all around amazing snakes. To me, I would take a Jungle over a $5,000 ball python any day. I do like Morphs of the carpets though. Right now the only snake that I do have is a Coastal Jag, but I want either a Bredli or a Granite IJ for my next carpet python.

 

[The Devil]

Wow, 14 pages and still growing.....the thread title "It's all in the colour" says it all and it is CORRECT.
A few years ago there was a poll conducted as to what characteristics influenced people to buy one reptile over another

About 80% responded that the main thing they looked for was colour.....i.e. they wanted to get a pretty looking reptile.

 

[waruikazi]

On that note Gordo... can you or anyone else on this thread point me to a good field herping guide (practical not species identification) I am planning to drive down from Cairns to Melbourne at the end of the year and plan to maximise that trip in terms of seeing reptiles...

Not really. And there's not really much to it so it wouldn't make for a real big book. I'll try and meake a thread about it when i get some time.

 

[TigerCoastal]

I'm still a noob when it comes to things like this and am still forming all of my opinions, but i think alot of the emphasis on color/marking comes from what is seen to be better. Now days everything has to be bigger/better/brighter, and with the steady increase in the number of people who want to/keep herps this trend of breeding to meet the market and have the "newest and best" around. I'm not saying that it is a matter of money, i think the more people keeping herps the better as it helps to inform the rest of the public (if possible :S), and without these new morphs, x-breeds or hybrids i think there would be a few less people keeping herps.

I know when i was looking for my first snake i spent 2 years looking, i bypassed all of the "wild type" snakes, looking for something "special". I got a tiger stripe coastal, as i saw it, it was "special" but not to far removed from what you could see in the wild. Now 3 out of my 5 snakes are wild type, as i didnt buy them on looks alone, but saw them as a chance to keep and learn from a few different species. Even now when i am looking at snakes i find that the "designer" snakes catch my eye, one of the nicest snakes i have seen is a diamond x bredli. I personally dont think that i would ever breed one, i may own one as a display animal one day, but i still keep going back to the wild type animals.

 

[Owzi]

Sorry to go back a few pages, I hadn't looked at this monster of a thread for a few days!
Right of reply to a couple of comments to my earlier post-

My thoughts-

Wild type/Locality type - will look like & behave like it's wild cousins.
Selective bred/Morph - will have certain colour traits highlighted & behave like its wild cousins.
Hybrid - man made animal that doesn't occour in nature & has mixed behaviors and adaptations.

My personal opinion is that it seems dissrespectfull to a species, that has evolved and adapted to its enviroment over thousands of years, to destroy all of that by crossing it with something totally different.

But its ok to keep them in a box some ppl on here get me.

Exactly right Craig 2...people have a go at breeding for colours/morphs etc etc as its cruel/disrespectful to the species....yet as you so correctly pointed out Craig, they keep them in a box...LMAO, if you loved and respected them that much, let them out where they should be.... love it.....

Interesting point.
So someone like me, who is interested in the colour & natural behaviour of an animal, keeps it a certain way.
e.g. I'm a big fan of Green Pythons, striking colours & unique behaviour. I keep them in a "box" that allows them to display their natural behaviours like perching, climbing, using their prehensile tail, hunting position, etc. because I enjoy seeing all of these things, not just the colour (as Waterrat asked in his first post).

So for keepers that are only interested in colour, how do they keep their animals?

 

[fugawi]

If you crossed a Bredli with a Ball, one from the deserts of Aust, the other from the jungles of Africa, how do you determine lighting and heating requirements?

 

[D3pro]

If you crossed a Bredli with a Ball, one from the deserts of Aust, the other from the jungles of Africa, how do you determine lighting and heating requirements?

Lighting won't be needed and heating would be 35-26... just a guess, but that's standard python temps.

 

[FAY]

I have a beautiful albino darwin as anyone who has seen her can attest to. But my most favourite snake is a boring, brown, nothing looking childreni that I will NEVER EVER part with.

 

[fugawi]

What about humidity?

 

[jmcsnake]

This is just my opinion,
Someone mentioned earlier about the 3 types of people, those who hate snakes, those who like snakes but don't know it yet, and those who love snakes. Well I think that last group, those who love snakes could be broken down further.

The first are the people who love having a snake as a pet,

The second are people who love the ecology side of things more and like nothing more than seeing a snake in it's natural environment.

And lastly those who also love the ecology, biology side of things, and enjoy recreating the natural environments these animals live in an attempt to witness/ document natural behaviours in captivity.

I think that these groups of people all merge into each other some what and most people start in one and eventually follow through to the other groups.

One thing most of these groups have in common though is that it's always great to see a nice/unusual looking animal.

Personally nothing gets me more excited than finding a species in the wild that I have never seen before, but I also get a high out of seeing a fantastically patterned Carpet or a lovely blue tree snake.

Colours are great, but they aren't everything I guess

 

[Elapidae1]

I think everybody should keep what they want for what ever reason they want, but I also think people should put in at least a few days effort to actually find some of their local species, I just can't believe that there is people who have absolutely zero interest in their snakes natural history and behaviours etc. There must be a spark of interest somewhere.The interest in the animal itself must of come before the colour caught the eye.
I posted pics of a carpet earlier and I can tell you I nearly threw all 120kg of myself into a backflip I buzzed for a week. The Stimmie I posted was in an area so degraded by humans it left a lump in the throat. I didn't expect to see anything there, so I was elated to be able to see the snake (a big old female I think) still hanging in there doing it's thing. We had travelled 3 hours just to find it, despite having our own snakes and knowing others with loads of "quality" Stimmies in boxes. When I first started herping it was all about the snakes now I get excited about seeing tiny skinks scurrying over rocks or poking their noses out of crevices and cracks in tree stumps. The diversity of our herpefauna is astounding, filling virtually every niche our massive country has to offer.
If you own reptiles and haven't explored any further than their enclosures and pretty colours, you have no idea what you are missing.

 

[ShaunMorelia]

I have a beautiful albino darwin as anyone who has seen her can attest to. But my most favourite snake is a boring, brown, nothing looking childreni that I will NEVER EVER part with.

Then you don't mind sending down your albino to me then Fay

 

[The Devil]

Check out these 2 pics, I would reckon that 90% of people would choose the jungle, even though they are generally snappy, over the woma.

 

[Cockney_Red]

On the subject of crossing...

Sometimes you see intergrades for sale, now i understand that intergrades are naturally occuring (no problems with that). What i don't understand is how people breed intergrades in captivity. Get two sub-species of morelia in the collection and breed them then call them intergrades, should they not be a straight out cross in captivity?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!!!

 

[D3pro]

Check out these 2 pics, I would reckon that 90% of people would choose the jungle, even though they are generally snappy, over the woma.

I don't know.... that woma is pretty nice

 

[grimbeny]

I would like a GTP because I think they look cool, am I a monster?

 

[D3pro]

What about humidity?

A cross between to arid species would have very similar requirements. Crossing a species that prefers high humidity (like a GTP) with one that doesn't (almost all carpet pythons) would require I bit more thought.

 

[Red-Ink]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!!!

What a thought provoking post to a very interesting discussion. Got anymore gloden snipets of knowledge you would like to share with us....

 

[Radar]

Intergrades are bred in captivity by using intergrade parents, from wild caught intergrade stock or it's decendent stock....not from crossing subspecies.

 

[Red-Ink]

Intergrades are bred in captivity by using intergrade parents, from wild caught intergrade stock or it's decendent stock....not from crossing subspecies.

Cheers mate...