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PHYSORG (Australia?) 06 December 06 Dramatic snake colour-change mystery solved
The mystery surrounding a snake that undergoes a spectacular colour change has been solved by ANU ecologists who have found that the skin of the green python – which begins life either bright yellow or red – transforms to blend into a new habitat as the snake gets older.
Dr David Wilson and Dr Robert Heinsohn from the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at ANU, with Professor John Endler of Exeter University, solved the mystery after a three year study radio-tracking the green python at Cape York Peninsula.
“Animals sometimes change colour during their lives, but none as dramatically as the green python of northern Australia and New Guinea. It has puzzled evolutionary biologists for decades,” Dr Heinsohn said.
“This beautiful reptile is popular in the pet trade because it hatches either bright yellow or red, but eventually turns emerald green. It turns out there is a very good reason for this dramatic change.”
For the study, published this week in the scientific journal Biology Letters, the researchers radio-tracked a large number of juvenile and adult pythons and analysed their colours using advanced spectrophotometry.
To their surprise, they found that the brightly coloured youngsters live in a completely different habitat to the older snakes. The juveniles remained outside the rainforest where they hunted small prey such as skinks and cockroaches, whereas the adults moved into the rainforest canopy to hunt rodents and birds.
The juvenile yellow and red colour allows them to blend in remarkably well with the multi-coloured leaves and grass at the forest edge. The adult green allows them to hide from their predators as they hunt for birds and rodents in the canopy.
“It was only when we established the total divergence in behaviour of the juveniles and adults that we could begin to understand their remarkably different colours.
“It takes a year before the young ones are large enough to catch bigger prey like birds. They then shed their skins, change to green, and move inside the rainforest to try their luck off the ground.
“Drab juveniles are the norm in the animal world, but the brightly coloured young of green pythons are unique. They are helping us to understand where the bright and beautiful colours seen in nature come from and how they are maintained,” Dr Heinsohn said.
Source: Australian National University
Dramatic snake colour-change mystery solved

So why do the babies still naturally climb onto a branch? Perhaps they "perch" on bushes and smaller plants.

I liked the shed their skin and change color part. Mine haven't changed any more or less from shedding.
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

are we supposed to feed cockroaches to neonates now?
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

>>are we supposed to feed cockroaches to neonates now?

LOL... um, no... Probably not... You have to bear in mind that imports have internal parasites for a reason...

I did see a post on the other forum though where someone was feeding crickets to there babies... I dont know that I would try that just because I wouldent know if it would give the snakes parasites or not... If it did it would be hard to exaplin to the buyer why there CB snake is loaded with parasites...

To each his/her own

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Shiloh Hawkesworth
kansas
(Midwest Serpents)

I would think that lizards would have far more parasites than cockroaches, but I was being sarcastic more than anything. I don't think I'm going to try feeding my neonates cockroaches! I'm wondering if they really saw any eating them or recovered some out of their gut to know they ate them. I can't tell you how many stores will tell you corns eat crickets and it just ain't so!
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

I saw David Wilson speak at the Symposium in St. Louis back in Feb. and he said he was collecting defication and going through it and saw these things... For example, he found beetle shells in the defication...

Works for me...

As far as the lizards having more parasites... What do you think the lizards are eating to get the parasites???
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Shiloh Hawkesworth
kansas
(Midwest Serpents)

Hmmm, good point. Yer a genius!
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

>>Hmmm, good point. Yer a genius!

No, No, David Wilson is a genius...
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Shiloh Hawkesworth
kansas
(Midwest Serpents)

But does he have cool chondros like you do????? I think NOT!

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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

Meg and Shiloh

The info in the press release was condensed and paraphrased for lay people. Tim Morris has the actual papers from this study. The study has been submitted for peer review and was accepted for publication in a leading scientific journal.
GTP's eat insects???? Mr. Wilson has video of a wild GTP catching and eating a moth. Marc Spataro was able to feed neonate gtp's with feeder crickets.
Why would it seem strange for a snake to eat an insect? The less specialized prey that a predator will eat , the more likely it will survive.
The paper doesn't say that the snakes change colour with one shed, but that around one year of age the colour change begins and that the animals move from the edge of the rainforest to the rainforest canopy. I believe Tim Morris will email a copy of this paper to anyone who request a copy.

Buddy B

believe the article. I wonder if it's something they often eat, or what they will eat if there's nothing else? Something to think about though if you have a finicky baby to start. I wonder what would happen if you scented with an insect?I know they are having success with raw chicken and getting non feeders to take that immediately. I wonder if anyone has thought about using an insect to scent though. Maybe one of those big hissing cockroaches and just rub it on a well washed pinky. I'm going to keep it in mind when I finally have a clutch. Hopefully they will all eat, but if they don't, I like having a massive arsenal at my disposal!
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

Mr. Wilson has video of a wild GTP catching and eating a moth.

Actually that is not entirly true... The video only shows the chondro attempt to catch the moth... But he does believe it woudl have ate the moth if it had been caught... And I think he is right...

I found David Wilson's talks to be very informative and very well researched (6 years I think)...
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Shiloh Hawkesworth
kansas
(Midwest Serpents)

Shiloh

Thanks for the video clarification.

Meg
I had 5 neonates out of a clutch of 25 that refused all attempts to feed. I had to eventually assist feed them pink heads. If all goes well I hope to have another clutch this spring, and I plan to use insect scented pinks followed by insects as a last resort before assist feeding any hard starters.

Buddy B

It will be interesting to see your results. Try strips of raw chicken too. Several people on the other forum have reported instant feeding responses to it and then were able to get them to take pinkies. Just something else for the arsenal.
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

As an behavioral ecologist myself, I view the findings not so much that the color-change has been "solved" for the physiological mechanism hasn't been elucidated, but instead to me (anyways) the study simply suggests a relationship between juvenile coloration and habitat selection in terms of evolutionary adaptations.

Rich Culver

I was hoping the same thing. I had hoped that there were some studies that pinpointed what happens with the chromatophores and such and how they cause the change. It was an interesting article nonetheless.
-----
1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com

Anyone find the comment about young GTP's feeding on roaches somewhat interesting? There are not many pythons that I am aware of that feed on invertabrates and I wonder how prevalent this is in the young GTP's?
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www.chicagoherp.org

I found it interesting and I think it might be something to think about with a non-feeder. Maybe scenting with an insect? Who knows. I wonder how many other species of snake eat insects at the beginning. I also wonder how many routinely take them. Is it just some who can't find anything else and in desperation eat insects or is it a regular part of a young neonates diet?
-----
1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.4~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin,Minuet
1.0~Zigzag Bubblegum~Bazooka Joe
0.1~Neon het motley~Lumiere
1.0~Lav het motley/hypo~Storm
1.1.2~Green tree python~Whisper, Tempest, Surprise,Fuego
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
0.1~Old black Lab~ Callie (RIP)
2.0~fat cats~Topper, Briscoe
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....
www.franclycac.com