Posted by:
chrish
at Sat Oct 29 09:59:28 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by chrish ]
I'm not sure what chris means by obesity, because it's not what I would call a poster child for obesity in a captive. It looks solid & very stout, but obese, I don't see it.
I was talking about the tricolor, not the nasicus posted. The nasicus was just a big girl. Didn't look particulary overweight.
The tricolor on the other hand clearly had a LOT of extra fat under the skin. This was most obvious on the anterior end of the snake where the animal didn't taper at all until you get to the front of the skull. I don't think there is any question that that snake is too FAT.
Certainly Jim's point about pumping out 5 clutches a year is worthy of consideration, but consider a similar strategy in female humans. Imagine a woman getting her weight up to 350lbs so that she could have 5 kids in 4 years. Not a very healthy strategy! It works the same way in snakes.
I'm sure there are areas where hogs get bigger. I don't know where that would be, but there is bound to be regional variation. The biggest Western I ever found was in Hudspeth county Texas. She readily at DOR kangaroo rats and could eat a weanling domestic rat. I don't think she was over 500 grams, but she was WC.
I think kennerlyi are somewhat smaller.
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Chris Harrison
Central Texas
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RE: Monster W. Hognose - chrish, Sat Oct 29 09:59:28 2005