Het Anthrax, Purple Tiger, and Kayuadis... RETICS!!

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Originally Posted by Dr Satan

ignorance and fear... thats too bad. all it takes sometimes is one person to ruin it for all the others... :(

i think educating the public about all reptiles is the key. there is so much to learn. :)

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Yep, I agree. I got my Grandma from Hating snakes to letting them live at her house for over 3 months!!! lmao I'm still considering applying for a permit of somesort to be able to keep a tic in the future. Mind you I'm only 16 and a retic is still far from what I can handle. Redtails(new pics up now in the Boa section) are big enough for me now.

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Originally Posted by Pork Chops N' Corn Bread

Yep, I agree. I got my Grandma from Hating snakes to letting them live at her house for over 3 months!!! lmao I'm still considering applying for a permit of somesort to be able to keep a tic in the future. Mind you I'm only 16 and a retic is still far from what I can handle. Redtails(new pics up now in the Boa section) are big enough for me now.

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i live in eastern washington state... all herps are legal to keep here except native ones.

on the westside of the state (seattle) all snakes over 10ft are banned in city limits... including boas.

... pretty lame if you ask me. rules are established all because of one or two people who lack presence of mind (ie -free roaming snakes in the house, anthropormorphizing wild animals :colbert: ).

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Originally Posted by Dr Satan

i live in eastern washington state... all herps are legal to keep here except native ones.

on the westside of the state (seattle) all snakes over 10ft are banned in city limits... including boas.

... pretty lame if you ask me. rules are established all because of one or two people who lack presence of mind (ie -free roaming snakes in the house, anthropormorphizing wild animals :colbert: ).

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I agree. The limit for snakes here is 8' and the limit for lizards is 5'.
Its wierd though, We can legally keep BCI which if fed very heavily can reach 8'+

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Originally Posted by tmlowe5704

that het anthrax is one mean looking snake

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Heh...you should see Anthrax himself! :devilish:

for those who havent...

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/retic_axanthic.html

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/retic_granite.html

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/ava...&cat=25&page=1

:rockon:

Super awesome snakes.. I am digging the albino.. those eyes are killer!

Retic's are such beautiful snakes I wish they werent illegal here.

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Originally Posted by Dr Satan

there is actually a slight physiological advantage to being big if your poikilothermic...

surface to volume ratio is larger, therefore less metabolic energy is lost from the body into the environment - that means bigger meals, less often.

life (in biological terms) is all about conserving energy, in a energy draining world. :2cent:

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Your right about large surface-to-volume ratio being favorable for poikilotherms (cold-blooded animals)

But........

The larger an organism, the more the surface area-to-volume ratio decreases. This is because volume increases much faster than surface area. Volume increases by the cube while surface area increases by the square. Try it out with a series of boxes or cubes to see what I mean.

For poikilothermic animals, surface area is the amount of heat capturing surface one has while volume is the amount of body that needs warmed up. As a snake increases in overall size, the amount of of heat-capturing surface you have per unit body decreases.

What this mean is that it is much harder for a larger poikilotherm to warm its internal body core than a smaller poikilotherm of the same shape.

This is why you don't see really big snakes being native to North America. It is simply to cold here for these big snakes to survive.

Awesome pics though.....

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Your right about large surface-to-volume ratio being favorable for poikilotherms (cold-blooded animals)

But........

The larger an organism, the more the surface area-to-volume ratio decreases. This is because volume increases much faster than surface area. Volume increases by the cube while surface area increases by the square. Try it out with a series of boxes or cubes to see what I mean.

For poikilothermic animals, surface area is the amount of heat capturing surface one has while volume is the amount of body that needs warmed up. As a snake increases in overall size, the amount of of heat-capturing surface you have per unit body decreases.

What this mean is that it is much harder for a larger poikilotherm to warm its internal body core than a smaller poikilotherm of the same shape.

This is why you don't see really big snakes being native to North America. It is simply to cold here for these big snakes to survive.

Awesome pics though.....

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your right - surface/volume... so the larger the volume the smaller the ratio... thanks for pointing that out... i was just saying that it is an advantageous for any organim (collection of tissue and cells) to be big... the less surface is exposed to the environment the better... its all about conservation of energy.

as far as heating up... i think that reptiles can raise their core temps pretty fast. much faster than they cool off as they can seek refuge and insulate themselves so they conserve heat.

... as far as why you dont see large reptiles in american temperate regions... maybe continental drift has more of an influence, as their are no living or fossil representatives of native pythons to either north or south america... i think that clade branched out after the continents drifted apart.

:2cent:

oh ya... another thing that comes to mind...

the laws of energy conservation, the surface to volume ratio, and their relation to biomass is even more apperant in mammals... prime example is the large mammals that inhabited the north american continent in the Pleistocene era (1.8 million to ~10,000 years ago)... land sloths, mammoths, and giant elk all had to survive on little more than grass and tree bark.