HELP NEEDED! Possibly blood? But where did it come from?

[Mettle]

I have all my ball pythons housed in bins. This morning I checked on them, replaced water, and found that my het clown female, Byrne, had left a present. So I cleaned the tub and put in new paper towel. This evening I went in to check on her again as I had gotten a new hide for her (a super fancy Becel container) and was going to place this in with her. Up until this point it was just her and her water dish. I became alarmed when I saw red markings on her paper towel.

These are the pics I took.







My first thought was BLOOD. I frantically checked over my snake. I looked for mites as well, and did the wet paper towel test, and came up with nothing. I did not see any evidence of them on her at all. I also inspected her vent just in case something was going on there and again nothing.

Now, this reddish smearing is a bit too bright to be dried blood. Yet at the same time there was nothing in the bin that could have given this off. It also doesn't look like random fibres that were somehow mixed into the papertowel during processing.

Does anyone have input or any ideas as to what this might be? And should I be worried about my snake? Because I really am.

I've looked at her very carefully from head to tail. And was nearly bitten twice might I add, heh. She's not the friendliest ball python to begin with and trust me she did NOT appreciate the thorough examination.

I have replaced the paper towel and will keep a close eye on things and see if these smears reappear. I sure hope not.

Again, any insight would be great.

Thanks.

[CoolioTiffany]

Did she shed at all? When my Ball pythons shed they normally leave some blood behind from the shedding from inside the vent. And, if you fed her, that could be the blood of the rodent. If you feed f/t, sometimes the nose of the rodent will bleed so that could have happened too.

[Mettle]

As I indicated in my post the papertowels were fresh from this morning. She has not been fed and has not shed since the new paper towels were put into her bin.

Between yesterday and today she had a bowel movement, but I cleaned that out this morning. (Thus the new paper towel.)

Someone pointed out to me over MSN that she could have bled from her nose. If so, what would cause this?

[marwari31]

Did you check yourself? I did this once, freaked out, checked my snake from head to tail, nearly had a heart attack, couldn't find anything ...then realized i had a paper cut

[Mettle]

I did consider this as well. There's a chance that it might have been me, I suppose, because I do get cuts and scrapes on my hands from work. However, I currently don't have any open cuts on my hands and so thought that there was little chance that it was me.