"Dwarf Retics"

[Blake_Herman]

Here's a pic of one of my May '06 female 50% jamps/50% normal that was produced by Jason Reed. Now keep in mind that jamps are one of the larger dwarf locales. Obviously she's a little chunky, she eats great. But she's only about 5-6 ft and is now 14 months old. You can see my fingers in the picture for a size reference...

[Blake_Herman]

That is what I was assuming he had found.

I'm still kind of confused about what you were saying about the purple phase albino, maybe you want to clarify a little more (for me and everyone else)...? Thanks...

[_BoidFinatic_]

I'm still kind of confused about what you were saying about the purple phase albino, maybe you want to clarify a little more (for me and everyone else)...? Thanks...

I was referring to this:

ok so for the true bloodline of the snake the father and mother both have to be dwarfs. so when people are selling things like albino purple phase dwarf retic this is not a true dwarf? this sucks then becasue i was looking into them. i know a few breeders that produce albino purplephase and love the way they look i just wont be able to handle the size

[Blake_Herman]

okay, my bad, I was skimming through the quote but I missed part of what it was saying... I understand what you meant now...

the problem is that none of the current morphs or mutations exist within the dwarf locales (except the fire superdwarfs). So the only way to start to bring those in is to cross them. And it does make for smaller retics, but in most people's opinions, they aren't true "dwarfs". As someone stated before, a 10' full size retic is small for a reticulated, so in my opinion that is still "dwarf"... I just think it's critical to be able to keep track of what genetics are going into things...

I have a perfect example though, my dwarf super tiger is only 50% dwarf. Because that's as close as we can get at this point in time... But you can VERY easily tell all of the dwarf influence that he has within him, and he is noticeably smaller... he's the one I was referring to in one of my other posts about producing sperm at 6 ft...

As most of you know, super tigers are yellow, and they have yellow/orange eyes... the "dwarf influence" i was talking about in my dwarf super not only is talking about his small size, but also that he took the silver/green body coloration from the jampea locale, and then also the silver eyes...


compared to my normal super tiger...

[_BoidFinatic_]

Yeah...that difference is quite noticeable, at least to the non-colorblind. And you're right, we need to keep track of the genetics. If you are going to purchase something that is 50% super dwarf, 25% dwarf, and 25% normal...you got to trust the breeder. I also believe that even a 13', well fed, 7 year old female "dwarf" retic can and should be sold as such.


Oh and Blake, is your bhutan yellowhead going to get just as large as other mainland tics?

[sweety314]

Here's an excerpt from Bob Clark's article in Reptiles Magazine on Dwarf Retics:





Quote:
Dwarf Retics

In the last few years, reticulated pythons have become available from populations where the average adult size is much smaller than the snakes with which hobbyists are most familiar.

Retics from some Indonesian islands may reach only 8 to 10 feet, with females attaining maturity at about 6 feet (even less for males). The retics said to originate from the localities of Jampea and Kayuadi are such animals. I've seen wild, imported female retics from these localities that were gravid, only 6 feet long and weighed only 5 pounds.

These smaller snakes are the result of the forces of natural selection in their particular environment. Genetically, they seem to lack the potential to reach large sizes. These smaller retics are becoming very popular. The imported animals are, for the most part, not aggressive. Several breeding groups of dwarf retics have become established in this country and the demand for them is very high.



A local breeder (Portland) was selling some of the Jampeas. That's what Kaa was....a Jampea dwarf retic. That's why I bought him. I wanted the retic w/o the wonking huge length (at this time). He was an '05 import, and about 5.5-6'. That's all he was expected to reach. Figured he'd eventually get bigger around the girth, but since he a casulty, I'll have to wait until I can get another to see how it all pans out.

I've got some other plans in place, but I'll be replacing him eventually...prob. w/in the next year (or less).

[MPenn]

Jampeas are actually one of the larger "dwarfs". I have personally seen a 14 ft. female.

If you really want to look for a smaller retic, look for Kayaduai or superdwarfs.
The genetic stripe is also a "dwarf". The largest female is right at 10 ft.

[Blake_Herman]

Oh and Blake, is your bhutan yellowhead going to get just as large as other mainland tics?

yes, it's from an island located about 20 miles from sulawesi, and from what I've been reading, they are expected to be one of the larger locales of retics... being wild-caught, we don't know how old our butan is, but he was imported into the US late in '06, so he seems kind of small for what his likely age is, but he's been growing well with us (about 1.5 ft in the past 2 months)... we'll just have to see...

Jampeas are actually one of the larger "dwarfs". I have personally seen a 14 ft. female.

The largest I've seen was a 16 ft. jampea female... but that one in particular has been fed pigs, and in my opinion, the snake doesn't have a choice but to keep growing with a diet like that. Where in the wild, jamps wouldn't be eating prey that large... And still, for a MONSTER female, 16 ft is rather small...

And from everything I've seen, the WC jamps are much smaller. And every CB jamp I've personally seen has been larger (that doesn't mean small CB ones don't exist, just not CB ones that I've seen). So IMO, this backs up my theory of the prey size having such a huge influence on adult size.

If you really want to look for a smaller retic, look for Kayaduai or superdwarfs.
The genetic stripe is also a "dwarf". The largest female is right at 10 ft.

Good point bringing in the genetic stripe. I'm a little confused though about one thing. Do full-size het genetic stripes still produce a dwarf retic? Or do the het g-stripe's always have dwarf features (small size, etc)? Does the full-size het parents influence the genetic stripe offspring's size? I'm picking up a genetic stripe in a couple weeks, but it was produced from two WC g-stripes that are both clearly proven dwarfs... I was just curious about how full-size hets affect the mutation...

Hopefully I articulated everything there...