Worst mis-identifications...

[BciJoe]

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!

[angllady2]

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." 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." 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

[MisterKyte]

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.

[1nstinct]

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, 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. 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.
but hey i keep check CL because you never know what you will find(i missed out on a female pied by 1 day!)

[darthkevin]

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk that's why it is probably misspelled

[Vypyrz]

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...

Sent from my Motorola ATRIX using Tapatalk 2.

[JKPCONSTRICTORS]

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...

[MisterKyte]

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. 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.
but hey i keep check CL because you never know what you will find(i missed out on a female pied by 1 day!)

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.

[BciJoe]

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.

[Valentine Pirate]

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