hey guys. im new here. a friend referred me here, and im hoping to get a simple question answered. i love snakes, and i have always been an amateur owner... having only one snake my whole life... she's now 9 years old. and she's a ball python.

anyways, a friend came over and looked at her and was handling her... and my buddy said that she was a he.

i thought the rule of thumb was that females had very stumpy tails compared to males, who had longer, tapered tails? ill post up a picture later, when i have the time... but i compared my snake to my buddy's clearly-identified female, and they are completely different. they are both the same age give or take, and my friend's female is about three times the weight of my male, shorter in length, and has a stuby tail... my male is long, much thinner, and has a thinner, longer tail.

is there any real way to identify a snake's gender?