Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sumatran Blood ?

Borneo?

?

Snake 1:

Snake 2:

And if you can answer this can you also educate me as to how you can tell?

I'm no expert but I do like looking at bloods/STPs. My guess is by looking at the color is that the first one is a Borneo STP (P. curtis breit.) and that the second one is a black blood which I think is also P. c. breit.
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1.0 Graziani Pastel Ball Python (Baldwin)
0.1 Spider Ball Python
1.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Snow Kenyan Sand Boa (Gaara)
1.0 Blue Garter Snake (Blue)
0.1 Sumatran Blood Python (Medusa)

1st snake is a brongersiam or a red blood.

2nd snake head looks bronger, but color is very dark, so before i guess ill ask for another pic of it full body shot!

#1 is definitely Python brongersmai (aka blood python)
#2 is most likely Python curtus (aka black blood python)
though there are some western Borneo (Python breitensteini)populations that get dark and can be easily mistaken as Python curtus as hatchlings. Based on the photos I am more inclined to think Python curtus since there is no real black in borneo's just dark browns.

The photo below is a dark Python breitensteini (borneo) and the tub shot of three different appearances of adult borneos.

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How come it seems that I see more "red" bloods that arn't really red? I understand that Sumatrans can be a few different colors like the picks below, But is there any advice on picking animals that will more so then not turn red instead of brown or yellow?

Ian

There are P. brongersmai they selective breeding results in all or nearly all red animals, but often red, yellow and brown can come from the same clutch. Here is my plug for captive bred! - farmed/Captive hatched animals have no history so you can't know how they will turn out. Often they turn brown or yellow (which I like all phases, personally), but some do exhibit red coloration.

A paper was published in 1997 called "Ecological divergence among sympatric colour morphs in blood pythons, Python brongersmai" that mentions the breakdown of color in a sampled population of animals as follows:

65% red, 26% yellow, 5% brown and 4% orange.

Keep in mind, that the nicest animals are likely picked over by the time the pet stores and general wholesalers get them with the best often going to breeders, etc.
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Thats A good point. I really like the yellow female I just got. Her head is a real funny color of grey, almost like a purpleish grey lol. HOw breeding season going? Im almost ready to add Borneos!

Ian

Thanks for the information .. now can you tell me how I can tell myself the difference. I hear about a certain number of scales but I am not sure about it..

Can someone post the difference with pics to explain ?

The following paper goes into detail on the differentiation of the short-tailed python complex formerly known as Python curtus sp. I have a link/download on my website under tips and tricks.

Ecological attributes of two commercially-harvested python species in northern Sumatra by Richard Shine, Ambariyanto, Peter S. Harlow, Mumpuni
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First one ist a P. brongersmai, I think.

The second one is definitely a P. curtus.