Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If a snake is markedly different in size (Smaller) from what is considered a normal sized individual, and all of the snake's body features are in proportion, is it not then considered a midget ( little snake for political correctness) I know that in humans that there are many different kinds of Dwarfism. Jack

jack, i've seen 1 or 2 drawf couperi at shows & they are anything but proportional. it's not that they are just smaller, they're quite weird looking & out of whack! kinda hard to describe but somebody may have a pic out there somewhere.........

Hi Dan, I was mainly going by what Rob Carmichael was saying about having a 4 year old female couperi that was only 28 inches long but fairly normal in body proportion to length ratio. I just wanted to see a photo of it. I guess I have been incorrect about the dwarf nomenclature for most of my life I had always thought that little people of proper proportion to their height were known as midgets and all other little people that had dis proportionate features of limbs or head etc were known as Dwarfs. I understand that they are all little people now. I saw that episode on CSI about the little people convention in Las Vegas Love that Catherine Willows. Jack

Midget is the pejorative slang for a person who suffers from some form of dwarfism.
Dwarfism is the name of the medical condition and so people with this condition are often referred to as dwarfs.
Little People is the name that people with hypopituitary dwarfism preferred to be called.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Hi Chris, so hypopituitary is the form of dwarfism where a person is very small in stature but perfectly proportional? correct? I know nothing of Dwarf genetics, Thanks for the info. Jack

i believe that a dwarf has normal sized head and body but short limbs....while a midget would be a proportioned individual way shorter than average....tom thumb would have been an example...about 125 pounds ago in genetics class i seem to remeber that turner's syndrome ( a single X genotype) would fit this description...i believe that all types perfer to be called little people.....would the same be true for these indigos????

Hi Bob, I think the proper term would be Little Snakes right?

Dwarf, midget, they all scare me!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe most Little People have the hypopituitary form of dwarfism. They basically don't produce enough HGH from the anterior pituitary to grow to their otherwise genetically determined stature.
However, there are other forms of dwarfism with different causes. The release of HGH from the AP is controlled by several other hormones and so a failure in any of these systems could theoretically produce dwarfism, or a failure of the body to respond appropriately to growth hormone. I guess you could even have cases where the growth hormone receptors on certain cells are non-functional. Growth is a complicated topic.

My real point, however, was that the name Midget is generally regarded as pejorative. Imagine someone marketing melanistic cal kings as "n****r kings". I think the same offense could be taken from the term "Midget Indigo".
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Gotta love every time someone needs to make an example they say ni$$er. Boy you gotta love america. When you need to refer to something negative, bring black folks into to it lol..

I was simply trying to give an example of an offensive pejorative term. I could easily have chosen from among dozens of others, but chose that particular term because it is so often batted about as an example.

No offense intended.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Should we re-name Midget Faded Rattlesnakes then???