Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone! I'm pretty new to these forums (at least posting on them) so I figured I'd give a formal hello and introduction. My name's Alex and I'm from Hollywood, CA. Currently a college student.

Just glanced at my ball python and got a "spare them your life story" look so I'll continue on to the stars of the show, the animals!

First I'll start with my leopard geckos. I have 2 females and one juvenile male. One female I've had for about 10 years. Sadly my family didn't always provide optimal conditions for her, but she's always thrived and has never had health problems of any sort. When she became my responsibility I made sure she had eeeeverything she needed! I think I spoil her...she's just slightly overweight. I bought the second female and the juvenile male from Montezuma's Reptiles during a clearance sale. The pride and joy of my life is my ball python, who is close to 2 years old. I bought him from the pet store after his previous owner dropped him off there....with part of his intestines protruding from his anus. Luckily the pet store owner was no stranger to emergency herp surgery and re-inserted the little guy's insides. He's never given me any problems. Ate the very first time I attempted to feed him, always sheds in one piece, never gets sick, just a total joy!

Enough talk! Here are the pictures:

My old lady

My younger lady

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures of my juvenile male. It's far too hard to try and control him with one hand and focus the camera with the other. I'll get one eventually, he's quite handsome.

And now Loki, the champion ball python

My parents recently bought a great digital camera which they've been kind enough to let me borrow when I go herping, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and share them on this forum. See you around!
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

Thats so cool.

maybe i should put pics of my other non-reptile babies too.

Do you ever leave the ball python out with the gecks?

and if so do they get along well?
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1 leopard gecko- corona
1 japanese chin pup- layla
1 kitty- libby
1 fishie- hoodlum

No I definitely don't let them interact. There's a lot of research involved in allowing different species of herps to interact in an enclosure, and although I haven't done it, there's little doubt in my mind that the python would try to eat them.

As to letting them all out of their tanks at the same time, that would be way too crazy to keep track of! My room is such a mess I can barely manage one gecko at a time.
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

oh man! I Wanna get another geck, but i dont know if id be able to handle another one either!

I assumed that the python wouldnt attack them because there cold blooded, and there only attracted to warm blooded mammals to eat.

like they have the whole heat sensor thing going on.

why is that he would attack them? is it a territorial thing?
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1 leopard gecko- corona
1 japanese chin pup- layla
1 kitty- libby
1 fishie- hoodlum

Well when you hear the word "cold blooded" it doesn't mean that their blood is actually cold. In mammals, we regulate our own body temperatures, and maintain a constant internal temperature. I think this is called being endothermic. A cold blooded animal can't regulate its own body temperature, so it has to rely on outside sources of heat to warm up so it can metabolize. In the wild, the temperature is usually high enough to give the animal energy to do whatever it needs to do. I don't think it's possible to completely remove the heat from an animal unless it's dead, and depending on how powerful the snake's heat-sensing organ is, it can probably detect even small heat traces.

Wow, haha...my head really hurts after typing all that . I hope that makes sense.
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

oh yeah, i already knew that.

Gecks are exothermic.

I just meant that i didnt think that a snake would notice a geck as a threat since they have like no body warmth/heat.

plus the smell wouldnt be a smell that theyd be attracted to.
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1 leopard gecko- corona
1 japanese chin pup- layla
1 kitty- libby
1 fishie- hoodlum

They have enough heat to create a signature. Lizards are a staple of a lot of arboreal snakes in nature. Just doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd want to find out, hehe.
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

In truth, there are snakes that eat geckos, but ball pythons aren't one of them. They are almost strictly rodent eaters. In the wild they may eat an occasional bird, but I'm not aware of any incedent in captivity where they've eaten anything but rodents. The problem with housing them together would come from possible disease or parasites that might pass from one to the other. Hope this helps.

Quig

Just doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd like to take a chance on.
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

I got rushed on that last response, had to leave before I was finished.

I know my python's body language. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's blatantly obvious. Subtle being, he has feeding time timed pretty well. He'll curl into the S-position when he knows I'm bringing food. He'll follow the heat trace of my hands, and strike at them (this is why i don't shove my hand in there holding the mouse, this is the lesson I learned when I first got him.) So, given a gecko, bigger than a mouse but having a similar shape, and maintaining a fair amount of heat due to the temperature in the tank, it stands to reason he'd strike at them too, at the same time of the week.

It definitely doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd like to be proven right on.
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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

Here are some pictures of my juvie male. Just took pics of him in his tank.

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Copyright © Dr. Zoltan Takacs.
All Rights Reserved.

Just thought I would add a couple pics to the list.

A couple more pics.