In the early 80s reptiles and other wildlife were still quite abundant in wollongong,nice rubbishy spots with plenty of old tin sheets and houses.In general if i go to the same places there is a lack of lyre birds,less antechinus stuarti and swamp wallabies etcpartly it can be attributed to the change of forrest edges from fire and clearance.It is the edges both man made and natural where wildlife is common buit some species such as lyrebirds are being depleted due to cats and foxs.That diamond in the first photo was a nice one serp and it had an incomplete tail i observed it for several years,the one in the middle was a nice lemon with creamy and yellowish spots it was male and out mating in my brothers yard.That one with the eggs you can see the size of the hatchlings by their heads,guite big for diamonds.
I'd love to have been there at that moment when that pic was taken
Serp has done the maternal incubation and indicus with various pythons,firstly zen make your the type of python will self incubate (myself and indicus have had bhps that didnt self incubate).Then work out whether your going to have it inside or outside,the diamonds ive had self incubate,one was outside in a shed and it got the morning sun (the one pictured)and one was inside with the room heated with an oil heater.I didnt have incubators in those days zen but the results were better than most anyway at the time.The ones outside had most of their moisture provided by misting the tank they were in,since they drop right down in temp at night they dont lose too much moisture zen,initially they were laid on a few very slightly damp tissues that dryed up anyway,they was inside that box.If they was left outside they would not hatch as it was april 23rd and they was laid on the 10th of jan,they just go into suspended animation.The ones inside hatched in early feb,one was a slug and one hatched then retreated and drowned and 27 successful,they all hatched at the one time and left the eggs quickly,The ones inside was laid in an elevated finch nesting box,on the bottom was layers of extremely slightly damp tissues and on top of these was placed folded up dry newspaper,the moisture gets into the newspaper over time.Basically zen its like they say in literature about the onley way you can stuff them is overheating or too much moisture,you need just the hint of moisture in direct contact with the eggs.Hope this may be of assistance,yeh make sure your species is going to maternally incubate,Rick Shine reports that some waterpythons stay with their eggs and some dont,i got incubator these days LOL. Cheers colin.zen said:Interesting pics & discussion guys.
Zulu, that photo of the hatchlings emerging from the clutch with the big black mother is a classic.
How do you find maternal incubation success goes compared to artificial incubation. :?:
I've read that it often results in loss of eggs & health problems or even death of the brooding female :!: :? .
This one was apparently successful though.
