Life stages

I was just wondering if someone could explain to me the life stages of a ball python. I see references to neonate, hatchling, yearling, sub-adult, adult, etc., etc. I'm clear on some of them but would like to be a bit more clear on what to call each life stage and at what point the snake moves from one stage to the next.

For instance our snake is about 3 months old...what is she properly called at this age? When do you call a ball pyton an adult....is this based purely on age or by sexual maturity or some other factor/combination of factors.


~~Joanna~~

There's no text book answer ... all of the "labels" you described are very subjective and will vary from person to person.

Take what you get with a grain of salt. ;)

-adam

I think one reason that there's no concrete life-stage description, is that BPs grow at such varying rates. It all depends on the amount of food they will take, the temps they're kept at, etc. I have one little male who refused food at a younger age, and he grew much, much slower than my female of the same "age." He was also kept at lower temps before I got him, which could have added to that reluctance to feed.

haha..... A good time back, I had researched all over about how to classify a bp by age. I never found two places that had the same info. So I determined that there are only two ball python life stages: non-breeding size and breeding size. :)