Worst mis-identifications...

I used to do Boas for a long time and have switched over to BPs. So many more people are into them that I get constant offers and calls from locals asking if I want to buy theirs or trade.

Wondering what have been some of the worst mis-IDs you've been presented with, here are some of mine..


-One guy called me and said he wanted one of my balls and had found what he thought was a ball or a kenyan sand boa outside, and if i'd trade for it. Then he tells me it's actually a Kenyan Sand Boa, a Female, 5' long, with a clutch of eggs!
Sand boas don't get half that big, and don't lay eggs! So I was curious..
Turned out to be a 3' Eastern Mud Snake.

-One guy just yesterday says if I could ID his BP morph and trade for one of mine. Then he proceeds to send me pictures of a hatchling corn snake, with plenty of belly pics to help ID what morph it was :)

This one was surprising!
-One girl contacts me and says she wants one of my balls that is tame, and that she'll trade another one for it. It's her cousins, and he'll give it to her, but she's scared of it because it bit him in the eye! So she'll take anything I have that 'won't bite'.
She tells me it's a Lucy. I'm thinking, he probably calls her that, but 99.9% it is NOT a Lucy. She sends me pics of a Lucy!

Someone locally tried to take advantage and trade her for 'black garden snakes', as she put it, probably baby black racers, as they are found around here easily. She consulted with me and passed on that.. phew!
Then she was coming to me. I sent her pics of Caramels, Mojaves, Cinnys, Pins, Spiders and more, and told her she can have a few... I wanted a good deal, but didn't want to take advantage.

She then calls me and tells me she left the snake in the car while eating lunch, came back and it's not moving! OMG I thought, here in FL. a snake won't last 5 minutes in a hot car!

She went to a pet store to check and they said it was alive, and the guy said he would offer her $800 cash, since it was a large adult female Lucy!
She called me and I told her, even though I would love to have that snake, that's your best deal.. at this time I can't offer close to that.
So she was set on taking the money and then coming to buy a snake from me.

While the guy goes to the bank to get the $, she feels bad and calls her cousin, because she wasn't supposed to get rid of the snake, and he yells at her and tells her to bring it back. So she leaves and does that.

Supposedly the lucy was possibly gravid from a male lucy and if it does lay, she will get one or two babies for me!




Let's hear your stories!

Mine worst one was at my local reptile show.

Guy comes up and is looking over all my ball pythons, morph babies and a few normal adults. He looks up and asks me if I have any Diamonds or Jungles. Well, Diamond isn't a real familiar ball python term, but Jungle sure is. So, I picked up this nice jungle pattern normal female I have and showed it to him. He takes the container and looks her over. He asks if I am sure it's Jungle. I tell him I can't say if she's genetic Jungle, since at 900 grams she's never been bred, but she has the Jungle look to her.

He looks at me and says, "I thought all Jungle Carpets were genetic." :stupidme: Now, aside from the fact that all my containers were clearly labeled BALL pythons. How on earth anyone could think a ball python and a carpet look anything alike is beyond me. I told him that she was not a carpet, she was a ball python. He looked at me, looked down at the snake, looked back at me and says, "Oh. Well I know Carpets come in all kinds of morphs, so I thought you knew what I meant." :confusd: Ok, so you can't tell a Carpet python, which you are trying to buy, from a ball python, and I am the stupid one?

Gale

Honestly, I'm totally blown away by that corn snake one. I mean, wow.
A bit of a leap there.

The only story I have to share isn't so much a personal experience, just something I saw in passing while on Craigslist but there was a man who had put up and add for baby Savannah monitors which he was only selling for $15 each! I was kind of curious because although you don't really see Savs go for a whole lot, I've never seen them go that low so I inquired and asked for some pictures. Sure enough the next day I get his response email filled with attachments and their all of adult alligator lizards.
To this day, I still have no idea if he was trying to do shady business or if he was just inept.

those are some bad ones, heres mine:
-i was one Cl a few days ago looking for ball pythons(i know but i have seen some nice ones;pieds,hyos,albino) and a ad said 6.5 ft ball python, so i clicked on it thinking wow ill pick it up and breed it and get some huge ball from it, it loads its a big BCI crammed in a 55 gallon tank:mad:, sent them an email saying it was a boa and not a bp, and the lady said thanks(her husband just passed and shes trying to get rid of it)
-still looking on CL i see a 50/50 albino ball python, i though wow maybe a paradox or something i have never seen, open it up and see a normal ball with the description=half albino half normal ball python $75.:confusd: emailed him too and told him there was no such thing it was either albino, het albino(100,66,50 etc) or normal. and he emailed me back saying i have no idea what i am talking about and i should mind my own business:O.
but hey i keep check CL because you never know what you will find(i missed out on a female pied by 1 day!)

So the boa I just saved- I am in to saving snakes now- this girl emails me about my add on Craig's list. She has a "speckled boa" and it is extremely rare. So I bit I had no friggin clue what she was talking about. She brings me an Anery girl. But I'm happy with her and I did save her from a bad keeper so all is well.


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Last year, I was checking out the snakes at one of my local pet stores. They had a snake marked " Colombian Red Tail, $125." One look at the snake in the tank, and I knew it wasn't a Colombian BCI. I wasn't in the market for a new snake at the time, so I called one of my friends who was. He bought the mis- identified Guyana BCC...

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A co-worker's boyfriend once showed me their beloved woma, which was actually a ball python. (A normal, not even the woma morph, if that's what you're thinking. They thought this was a real woma, from Australia.)

I never called to inquire, but I saw an ad posted on the bulletin board at Petco for a "boa python" for sale.

Years ago a woman wanted to give me her ball python because it had outgrown its enclosure and was too aggressive for her to handle. I went to check it out and it was an African rock python.

One time a man thought he owned a Brazilian rainbow boa. It was a retic.

There's so many more. I worked in pet shops from my 18th birthday until I was 23 or 24. Don't even get me started on the mis-identifications I'd see in shipments from the distributors...

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Originally Posted by 1nstinct

those are some bad ones, heres mine:
-still looking on CL i see a 50/50 albino ball python, i though wow maybe a paradox or something i have never seen, open it up and see a normal ball with the description=half albino half normal ball python $75.:confusd: emailed him too and told him there was no such thing it was either albino, het albino(100,66,50 etc) or normal. and he emailed me back saying i have no idea what i am talking about and i should mind my own business:O.
but hey i keep check CL because you never know what you will find(i missed out on a female pied by 1 day!)

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I've dealt with people like that in the past but all in all, I've found CL to be a great place to do some pick ups in my area.
I've gotten an amazing PB male Lesser on there and an equally amazing female sub-adult spider for relatively decent prices. Just takes some looking around and avoiding the people like the ones you've listed above, heh.

All good posts, thanks!

Just yesterday I was offered a Cinny 35% het pied.

It was a normal in appearance, and I said, are you sure, usually the terms/percentages are 50% or 66%, he said, that's what the breeder told him... SMH.

For some reason, i've also seen a few 'het for mojaves' around. :confusd:

I was perusing kingsnake once and saw an ad for a boa/ball python hybrid, no pictures of course. Then there was the time someone asked me to come get a "6' monster snake" from their cable box, I was hoping for a pine or bull (or someone's lost pet) and was greeted by a 18" garter

The worst ive seen so far was a breeder at the Las Vegas reptile expo a couple weeks ago selling Het Fires. This isnt a morph im very familiar with yet, but i was pretty sure fires were co dom. Later that day i was on face book and one of the local breeders was posting about argueing with that breeder about his Het's. After seeing the het Fire thing i didnt look real close at anything else but apperently it was pretty much all normals with bad tags. I cant say for sure on the other bad ID's but the Het fires i did see with my own eyes.

I had a 1300g black pastel female for sale a while ago and a well known breeder offered me a hatchling "pastel enchi" in trade. Since I have no experience with enchis, I contacted some awesome members/admins/mods here, I did not do the trade since it turned out the "pastel enchi" was a regular pastel.

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My favorite was someone on CL offering a "baby ball python" for a whipping $100...

Pics showed a juvie blood python, in a dirty tub and looking malnourished.

I nearly lost it.


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Well, I found this the other day: http://vancouver.kijiji.ca/c-ViewAd?AdId=411408060

A 1.5 year old "Boa Restrictor" hahahaha!

At the Daytona Expo there was a table with a baby male gravel ball python for $60. Looked like a normal in every way to me. Not that I am a pro at identifying gravels but I sure know enough that they wouldn't be selling him for $60.

I always love seeing on CL.

Ball python and corn snake need rehoming.

open the link and find pictures of 2 balls and a corn snake all coinhabiting a 20 gallon tank. with nothing but bulbs for heat....usually bone dry senarios.

I've seen het for pastel bps for sale on cl more then once.

Oh the old het pastel/spider ploy.

the other day i went to a local pet store and seen what was listed as a "cinnamon x pastel" which would be a pewter. well it was none of these and looked to me like a very nice light lesser. they didnt know the sex and let me check it. it was a male, i dont need him right now but for an adult lesser at 125.00 i may go back and get him. still thinking on it.

Few months back i found an adult male spider on cl for 100 bucks. So i contact the guy and he says if your a serious buyer he will through in an adult pastel for 50, so i bite and meet they guy check the spider he is 600gand and a little thin but so i buy, then i look at the pastel and it is a pastel that has missed about 4 sheds and about 500g under weight. So i pay the 50 just to rescue. I send the pastel to a friend more experienced with sick snakes and 3 weeks later good as new with a huge twist. . . Its a female! ! When i bought her i didnt try to sex her because of her condition. But i bought a male spider and female pastel for 150.

There was someone on KSL trying to sell her two VERY normal ball pythons for $300, claiming they were worth over $400 a piece...I died laughing.

This is awesome, great posts everyone! I still cringe when I see vendors at big shows like Daytona offering normal Colombian Boas as 'Het Hypo'.

Many of my other posts here were REALLY slow, i'm so glad this one did well.. glad to hear from everyone!

On a good note, I met someone today that drove an hour to see me, since I was the only one to offer to teach him how to pop baby BPs. He had his first clutch... Spider Het Ghost X Mojave.

I didn't ask for anything and felt bad as it was that he was driving so far, but as soon as I saw him he handed me a $20!

So I proceed to sex them... 2 normals, 2 mojaves, 1 spider, and 1 mojave spider, all poss het Ghost. ALL FEMALES!!! Actually the mojave spider I wasn't sure of because although nothing popped out, it was quite red in color, unlike the other females that were completely white, no red. I tried three times but same results, and they were in deep shed, so not only was it not as effortless, but I didn't want to mess with it too much.

So I mentioned how I buy babies and clutches, and explained how I buy straight out of the egg too. Prevents you from doing alot of work in the beginning to get them feeding and all. If you are a beginner, and are not good with those that don't willingly feed, you MAY end up losing some. Many people sell this way to eliminate risk, even 'pros'.

So long story short, I pick up the entire clutch tomorrow for $650 :banana: More or less the price of the mojave spider, or the other 5!

I SOOO needed more morph females! Who doesn't?! lol

About 4-5 yrs ago I was working at a pet shop part-time as the "reptile guy". I was off for the day and being summer I was jumping these 50ft quarries and swimming. I go to my truck and find a bunch of missed calls from work. I give them a ring back and they tell me this story: This woman was at her house and went to do a load of laundry. She opens her washing machine to find a big-ass snake and throws a fit. She calls the cops and they get someone out there to capture it. A manager where I worked had a small rescue type operation at her house so it got brought to the store for her to look after while what it is and what to do with it gets figured out. They were calling me to identify the snake. I start heading over to the store kinda excited hoping it's gonna be something absolutely awesome and I'd get to take it home myself. Well in the mean time the media gets word of this event, and.... yeah.... it ends up being one of THOSE "HOLY S*** SOMEONE FINDS DANGEROUS ESCAPED SNAKE." stories that goes national real fast. Well the media gets there before I do and gets some pics and their story. Except because I wasn't there a coworker was able to identify it as a retic by googling it. Knowing only the species the manager who it was dropped off to decides to address the media there and try to pretend to be an expect. She explains what was found was a 7 foot reticulated pythons that must have been illegally brought to the state and escaped, and that retics are venomous and dangerous. Her telling the media it was venomous was probly what contributed to the story going national because of the hype, good thing by the time it made it to print they made certain to note it was not actually venomous, which just made her look stupid. I show up just before the store is about to close and find it's been ID'd as a retic. I'm pumped and ask to hold it and examine it. She gets this shocked look on her face and says "No way, they're venomous." I explain that definitely is not true, and she should definitely know there are no venomous pythons. It then dawns on her just how stupid she is about to look when it's all in print in the morning. It was bitter sweet for me because she was a new manager that I definitely did not get along with. The snake should have gone home with me that night, but she wasn't having it.

These stories really are great haha. I work in a petstore, also the reptile guy, and a manager told me his friend bought 5 ball python morphs and had them for 3 months and didnt want them to die, because she couldnt get them to eat and asked If I would take them off her hands. I asked which morphs they were and he responded "Oh! Rare." So I facepalmed and went to the lady's place after work with a heatlamp cutting board and some F/T fuzzies. Turned out she had 1 ball python hatchling, 1 normal corn, 1 albino corn, a california banded kingsnake, and pueblan milksnake. None of them were in great shape, but most of them ate for me. She thought when you feed F/T, youre supposed to feed it to the snake FROZEN. Bigger facepalm. I couldnt house any other snakes at the time, so she wound uo turning them over to a rescue.(who I can only hope took care of them)

-Riveran

Think with me it had to be talking to a woman at the store about their large female ball python (she was about 5 foot and so beautiful) and she started going on about how they reach 10 feet, get thickish bodied and can have tempers. She only just assumed ball pythons and boa constrictors where the same thing (though the boa constrictors I've met have been sweeties so I don't know about the temper part.)

I've also seen a lot of people selling adult normal's for £150-£300 just for the snake, not sure what all these people where thinking!

My best was a het Pastel ball python I saw on CL. I also saw a guy selling a mystic that looked awfully like a normal to me.

Also was a post for a female pastel and male black pastel both breeding size for $400. I see pics and there is a pastel and a large normal. I tell her the male is a normal not a black pastel and offer to buy just the female pastel. She tells me thats what the breeder told me so thats what she was listing it as.

I explain again that it is completely normal.

I then see this same post again saying brother ball pythons. Listed as a pastel male and a normal male but still for $400???

Love CL people.

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Originally Posted by heylookitsjon

My favorite was someone on CL offering a "baby ball python" for a whipping $100...

Pics showed a juvie blood python, in a dirty tub and looking malnourished.

I nearly lost it.


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Last night I informed a CL seller that his "Boa" was in fact, a small Ball Python.

I'm not sure anybody can top that.

:rofl:

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Originally Posted by Beccanin

Think with me it had to be talking to a woman at the store about their large female ball python (she was about 5 foot and so beautiful) and she started going on about how they reach 10 feet, get thickish bodied and can have tempers. She only just assumed ball pythons and boa constrictors where the same thing (though the boa constrictors I've met have been sweeties so I don't know about the temper part.)

I've also seen a lot of people selling adult normal's for £150-£300 just for the snake, not sure what all these people where thinking!

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Boas, if the world was fair, would be warm and fuzzy....:)

Saw an ad on CL for a Female Talking Cow ............ went to see it, and it was actually just a talking Dog, and it was a male !!:rolleye2:

One of my co-workers has a BP that he bought as a normal, and paid a normal price for, but is actually a rather nice looking axanthic male. Although that's a good miss-ID if you ask me!

Found a CL ad a couple weeks back. Burmese python with entire setup 100$. It was only 7 miles away so I was kind of interested enough to email for more info and pictures.
I finally received some more info and pictures back...... It was a 6ft Columbian red tail boa, housed in

lady told me she bought the snake for her husband and was told it was a Burmese python. She swore up and down it was a burmese even after I sent her links to red tails for comparison

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Originally Posted by Beccanin

I've also seen a lot of people selling adult normal's for £150-£300 just for the snake, not sure what all these people where thinking!

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Originally Posted by iPanda

There was someone on KSL trying to sell her two VERY normal ball pythons for $300, claiming they were worth over $400 a piece...I died laughing.

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Oh geez, there was some jerk at the Cleveland expo yesterday selling young adult normal females for $250+. Not morphs, not hets. Normals. I couldn't help but laugh right in his face.

A guy on chicago CL claimed he had a super pastel male and multiple pastels... He sent me pics and all were normal. I sent him a picture of my pastel and a super saying actually you have normals, apparently I knew nothing and the picture that I though was super was actually a Hypo ghost super pastel......:rolleye2:

Found another one for you guys...a Brazilian Rainbow Ball Python!

A lady's husband passed and she was deathly afraid of his snakes, but wanted to sell his "albino's" for $100/piece. I get to her house and she said a guy just left with them. She shows me a picture and I almost screamed. She sold 2 Queen Bees for $200.

My husbands friend to this day claims that my 66% het albino girl "has pastel in her"(she is very normal until proven het). Also That my husbands pastel is only an ok pastel, and only MIGHT be het for super pastel. I might be wrong but last I checked pastel was co-dominant and by breeding two together I can produce normals, regular pastels, AND super pastels..... At least that's what the genetic wizard tells me along with anyone else here. Needless to say I've stopped taking morph advise from him when it comes to balls, and strictly have him help me with popping my snakes.

I've seen an "orange phase pastel" listed on CL in my area. They never got around to getting me pics on that one though once I started asking questions.

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Originally Posted by hitman3303

A lady's husband passed and she was deathly afraid of his snakes, but wanted to sell his "albino's" for $100/piece. I get to her house and she said a guy just left with them. She shows me a picture and I almost screamed. She sold 2 Queen Bees for $200.

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OMG. O_O I wish I had gotten that deal, Queen Bees are my dream morph!

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Originally Posted by jess6905

My husbands friend to this day claims that my 66% het albino girl "has pastel in her"(she is very normal until proven het). Also That my husbands pastel is only an ok pastel, and only MIGHT be het for super pastel. I might be wrong but last I checked pastel was co-dominant and by breeding two together I can produce normals, regular pastels, AND super pastels..... At least that's what the genetic wizard tells me along with anyone else here. Needless to say I've stopped taking morph advise from him when it comes to balls, and strictly have him help me with popping my snakes.

I've seen an "orange phase pastel" listed on CL in my area. They never got around to getting me pics on that one though once I started asking questions.

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Anyone who thinks a snake can be het for super pastel wouldn't be allowed to touch my snakes! Def not allowed to pop them.


Please excuse any errors sent from my crap phone.

Also just saw a guy in Phoenix selling three male "leopard het pieds" for $150 each. Looked normal to me...


Please excuse any errors sent from my crap phone.