Jud brought his large male green over and we introduced him to the female last week. He courted her for the first three days and then backed off for a few more days. He started showing interest again a couple of days ago and I found the scene below last night. He is definitely one consistent breeder. If he is successful this year, it will be the third litter he will have fathered in the last 5 years. He has also shown some growth since the last breeding two years ago. His weight is currently 72 lbs. (33 kg.), and he measures in at 12 feet 2 inches (3.7 meters). This would indicate a weight gain of 7 lbs. over the last 4 years and a growth rate for him of approximately 2 inches per year. Jud is controlling his food intake well as can be seen by his minimal weight gain. However his growth rate in length is more than I expected for a 14 year old male. For comparison, adult female greens in the wild of similar size show growth rates of from 1 to 2 inches per year on average. Although captivity is definitely playing a role, his size for a male is exceptional. In the Rivas study, out of 440 males that were captured, the largest was right at 11 feet (3.4 meters), with average adult males at between 8 and 9 feet. It would be interesting to know lengths on some other older captive males or really large males in the wild. Please let me know if any of you come across information on length records that may be of interest. Thanks,



Kelly

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