Woma Python

[Skiploder]

well it is all in the color. bright colors and good banding makes a good woma. darker colors and banding that is mushed together is not so good. its like any type of snake....the more that area available the less expensive they will be. black heads are a great example of this. they are up there right now but im sure the price will drop.

here is a site of a breeder who breeds womas and others. look at the coloring and banding on these. his average prices are like i said 400-800 dollars depending on the qualit of the animal. http://www.millerreptiles.com/Womas/Womas.html

i don't have a womas yet but i will be getting some as soon as i can. will i pay the extra hundy for a brighter, better patterned animal......you bet i will!!

Blackheads are harder to breed than womas - so the prices should stay up longer.

It's funny that you mention banding and color. Some people take great care with various species to maintain locality purity - central american locality boas are a good example of this - as are some locality bullsnakes, ratsnakes and.................womas.

Yes - there are several different woma localities. In some cases, these localities can be identified by the lack of color, drabness in banding, etc.

When I was in Australia 18 months ago, I spoke to breeders who were being very careful to breed by locality - not color. Ulurus, Tennant Creeks, Tanamis, Boodarie, Rockhampton Downs, etc. - all were being bred true to locality. Specific emphasis was put on documenting that the animals actually could be traced to the locality in question as people were misrepresenting localities to push prices up.

I saw several drab or muddy banded animals fetching good money because they came from specific localities.

So in the States, we are apparently pricing our womas for aesthetic reasons or by who bred them. We have no concept of the differences in locality and we don't care. We are paying top dolllar for brightly colored animals with no pedigree other than that of the person who put two attractively colored animals in a bin together.

I remember when people were freely interbreeding the antaresia species here. Now we are very careful to not mix our children's, spotted, stimson's and anthills. We are also now paying attention to locality differences within the species instead of blindingly interbreeding them for looks.

I'm sure that woma breeders are very knowledgeable about what markings and colors are more desireable than others. I'm with Neal on this one - I wouldn't pay double the price just because a couple of breeders decided a bright orange head makes the animal worth more.