Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a 19 inch Florida king yesterday at the New England reptile expo. The guy said it was a male, but its tail is very short like a females. But, are kingsnakes sexual dimorphic and can they be sexed by the lengths of their tails. I have 2 male water snakes whos tails are porportionatly much longer than the kings, but maybe that rule of thumb cannot be used with diiferent genera of snakes? Also, do male and females kings become different sizes when they are adults, like water snakes and garter snakes?

Thanks

19" is really to big to overt the hemipenis (pop them). Popping is when one roles the thump up along the tail towards the vent to see if the hemipenis can be overted. This also takes time and practice that you should only learn from a more experienced keeper.

What you need to have done is probe the snake to see if it is male or female. probing is where you take a thin blunt steel pin/rod (probes are sold at reptile shows) and insert it on the side of the vent towards the tail (not towrds the head) and if it goes down 6 or more scales it is a male. If it stops at 2-4 it is a female.

You can also post a pic of the underside of the tail (vent to tail tip) and we can make some educated guessses. But guesses is really all they would be. If you want to be 100% sure you should get the snake probed by an experienced breeder.

Do a search on "probing" here and then go to the classfieds and look for probes to veiw a picture. You might get lucky and find comprehensive pictures of what is involved with probing.
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I don't need no spell chack.

You can take a look at Cathy Loves website, it has a great video on sexing snakes. Kevin

thanks for the help guys, ill send a pic on its tail in the near future. the man i bought it from said he probed it and it was a male, but, i'm thinking maybe he got his snakes mixed up because this tail is very short. but then again, the length of the tail isnt 100% reliable way of telling, so, idk. if its possible for male kingsnakes to have short tails then ill believe it, but compared to garters and waters its tail is very proportionatly short.

i took some pictures of the snakes tail. idk if this matters, but right at the actual cloaca i can feel small bumps on the sides. are they hemipene or are they scent glads that all snakes have? so supposedly, this is a male, but i persoanly think it might be a female. let me know what you all think..

thanks

You rerally need a closer picture of the vent on down to the tail. Does your camera have a macro setting? Its a little flower symbol on one of the buttons. Most newer digital cameras have these now.
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I don't need no spell chack.