This is what male anthill pythons look like when combating. It was pretty neat to see. Unfortunately this was not planned...
When I placed this "pair" together I was surprised to see this combative behavior. I pulled out the female and probed her thinking that maybe I had made a mistake, but she only probed 3 scales deep. I gave them a few days apart and tried again with the same confrontational results. I probed the female again and again was puzzled. Then I tried using my thinnest probe which I only use on tiny hatchlings and voila she turned out to be a he. So for those of you sexing anthills - THEY HAVE VERY NARROW HEMIPENES! This was my first mistake probing snakes in probably ten years.
If you are curious this fight went on for almost 2 hours before the loser tried to get away, at that point the victor chased him and bit him on the back. Now they are both resting much more comfortably with real females!
