Funny new BP owner story

[silmaril]

So we are one week into life with a BP and I have been lurking on this site A LOT. Due to the profound wisdom of the administrators it took about 4 days for my membership to process so I could post anything. By which time I had read enough of the site that most of my really stupid questions had already been answered. One big question just got answered today, though ... and in a way that some people here might find entertaining.

This is my son's long-desired first snake, and we had done a lot of research. Ball pythons were consistently coming up as one of the snakes recommended for first time owners and kids, but I was sort of pushing for something smaller until I actually saw in person how much gentler and quieter the BPs were.

We settled on a beautiful 2 month old banana ball python last week because he was by about a thousand miles the most gentle, calm, easygoing snake of all the ones we looked at. I scheduled a vet check to make sure everything was good. It was mostly a precaution but there was one thing I was really worried about. I hadn't noticed it when we were in the store, but when I looked at our little guy in better light I noticed a number of tiny little black specks that suddenly made me worry that he might have mites or tics .... some of you already know where this is going, right?

Anyway, I eventually found a YouTube video that explains how the "banana" morph got its name. But not until I had gotten totally worked up about the impending health crisis of our poor mite-infested baby -- and googled every possible horrible snake disease -- and made our long-suffering vet go over every scale with his scope to make sure none of those scary black spots had wriggly legs!

It's really a shame I couldn't post about this until today. You guys would have had so much fun explaining it to me :-)

Just wanted to share that. And also to thank everyone here for the excellent information. Every one of my million questions was answered SOMEWHERE on this site. Pretty awesome. And especially special thanks to whoever wrote the sticky with step by step tank setup. That sticky alone made the difference between struggling with fluctuating temperature and humidity and actually being able to relax and enjoy our new noodle!

[tttaylorrr]

hahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHhahAHHAHAhahahahA!!!!!!!!!


what a great way to introduce yourself to the forum! welcome!!!

i have two Banana morphs, one male and one female. the male i got much more recently, so he had to go through The Quarantine Process first. as a young Banana, i would check on him so much longer than the others and just STARE for minutes to ensure none of his new spots were moving! lol.

don't forget to share pics! here's a how-to on posting photos.

[Avsha531]

Welcome to the forum, we are so happy to have you here! That is a really funny story, I was thinking "I know where this is going" lol.

You've clearly missed something very important going through tons of threads here though...where are pictures of the little baby????

Use the Tapatalk app, makes it real easy. Can't wait to see pics, I love Bananas!

Edit-Taylor beat me to it

[Bogertophis]

That's pretty funny, thanks! But it's always better to be aware & worried about mites (& other parasites) than to be oblivious to them. So, A+

Welcome to the forum and the fun of living with snakes....& trust me, it gets easier. Your vet is probably having a good chuckle too, ie. speckled snakes
are good for business!

BTW, you might want to buy a jeweler's loupe, you could have checked those spots yourself for less money. I love my loupes, I use them in my other
passionate hobby & they aren't very expensive at all. Useful for things like removing splinters too.

[pretends2bnormal]

Haha! That's going to be a fun story to tell down the line (& now but the anxiety and fear will be more distant memories later... lol)

I've got a banana boy also and luckily he had only a handful of spots when I brought him home. Enough that I could keep an eye on them not moving and new ones in places not as common for mites (and never moved) like his back. They're a lot of fun and I'm sure you'll enjoy your new buddy.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Craiga 01453]

Ha! That's awesome!!! As soon as I read banana and black spots I knew exactly where that was going. Trust me, youre not the first to fear that, you juat had the best story though! Thanks for sharing.

Happy to have you aboard, welcome to the forum and the wonderful world of snake keeping!

And kudos to you for erring on the side of caution.

[silmaril]

Thanks to all for the kind welcome! I will post photos soon but at the moment the kids have hijacked my computer :-) I’ll see if I can upload some photos not the gallery from my cell phones be before the battery (which they also ran down) dies...

[ryu80]

Welcome to the forum. I have a few banana morphs too and still do the checks too. Especially on the new spots that are small and in an odd place!

[the_rotten1]

I was in the same boat back when I got my female pastel. She had a lot of black speckles on her sides and I wasn't sure quite what they were at first.

It's always nice when it turns out -not- to be mites, right?

[Slicercrush]

Hey welcome to the forum!

Banana's/Coral Glows are some of my favorite morphs for sure, probably one of the next ones on my list! Funny story, I sure saw that coming all together as soon as I read about the black dots and the banana morph! Good way to introduce yourself, can't wait for the pics! And of course if you come up with any more questions, we are certainly here to help!