Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone have big arse carpets? Ive heard coastals grow up to 14 feet, and I know of the 'hybrid vigor' phenomenon, and there are lots of hybrid carpets. So anyone have carpets of any kind over say, 7 1/2 feet?

Most of the Coastal's that occupy US collections do not get much larger than 8'. However, there are a few notable exceptions. We personally own a 10' Jungle and a 10' Coastal. Neither of them are hybrids.

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Will Leary
Reptilicus Reptiles
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Holy smacks! I thought jungles were small! lol! I forgot to ask in the first post, do females grow bigger than males, like most other snakes?

She is probably the largest JCP in captivity anywhere. Definitely not the norm. And yes, female grow to be larger than males.
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Will Leary
Reptilicus Reptiles
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Will- you should show the pic of you and M.T. holding Rebecca! That is a sight to behold.

I would respectully disagree that it is 100% established that females grow larger than males.

In practice, yes most of our females are larger than males in captivity. However, I think this is an artifact of our behavior.

Dr. Shine has a paper on it somewhere, I will post a link as soon as I get a second to find it...
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Ben Team
Mark Davis
New Paradigm Herpetoculture
Captive Bred Morelia
404-438-2135
chondro776@yahoo.com

Here is the link- (I can't seem to find the complete article, but here is the abstract- I know that I have found this paper for free before...)

And here is a quote from the abstract (referenceing their study population (mcdowelli):

"In keeping with predictions from sexual selection theory, males attain larger body sizes than females in this population, whereas females grow larger than males in the previously-studied southern population where males do not engage in physical combat for mating opportunities."

And as an interesting example of the other side of the coin:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/dp7gne841wk6h2h8/
Abtract to a paper that discusses how females are the larger in imbricata, correlated with the lack of male combat (similar to M. spiolta spilota).

To the original poster: Here is one of my largest males, he is hovering at the 8 foot mark.

We use 4x2x2 caging for large carpets.

Hope this helps!
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Ben Team
Mark Davis
New Paradigm Herpetoculture
Captive Bred Morelia
404-438-2135
chondro776@yahoo.com

Both of my Coastals are 8'. Their heads get rather large at that size. Lol...I bought them at a livestock auction 2 years ago when I was buying rabbits for my olives. I got the pair for $220, but almost had them for $50 for the pair. The female dropped 35 eggs last year, and 29 hatched.
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1.1 Blackheaded pythons
1.0 Woma
2.1 Aussie Olives
1.1 Timors
1.1 Savu
1.1 Juvie Bloods
1.1 Juvie Balls
1.1 IJ Carpets
1.1 Coastal Carpets
1.2 Macklotts
1.1 Papuan Olives
1.0 Jungle Carpet
2.2 Scrubs (on breeding loan)
0.1 Jungle/Diamond cross
0.1 child, CB
0.1 wife, WC

What size cage do you use for a big carpet like that?