>>Do the heads ever "catch up" so to speak on the captive animals you speak of?
>>-----
>>Mark

I don't know, but I suspect not. My thinking is that, just like with humans, head development and cranial ossification occurs early in life. This has sometimes been called pin-head syndrome in captive snakes.

Take a look at this small photo if you can see it. This was a clutch produced by a large wild-caught female and a captive male. Look at the relative size of the head of the male. Yes, he is several years (at least) younger than her, but his head looks sort of 'normal' for a captive conicus.



Heres a smaller captive born female as well. Notice that her head is relatively narrow. I had her 10 years, and it she kept this overall morphology the whole time.



(I guess I need to rescan these slides since I scanned them about 15 years ago. Back then 450 pixels wide filled half you screen and took forever to download! )
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

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