Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dwarf retics have been out for some time now. What is the actual dwarf of the various locales? Jampea still get around 15' definatly a dwarf by retic standard but still a long snake. Which ones max out around 10' or less? Since there are several breeders on this site i figure someone who actual has dwarves or super dwarves, I might get true facts not suggestions.Thanks in advance.

I am gonna take a stab at this one, but someone may correct me if I am wrong.

As far as small Retics are concerned, my understanding is that Super Dwarf females can max in size at about 6 feet, maybe 7, but that's it. They can weigh less than a big female Ball Python and still lay eggs. The eggs and hatchlings are in most cases also supposed to be smaller than, or similar in size to Ball Pythons eggs and hatchlings.

As far as locales are concerned, I am thinking that Kayuadi (spelling) Retics are probably the same or nearly the same as the Super Dwarfs. Selayers are also supposed to be small, and supposedly genetic stripes tend to stay small, as well as golden childs. You already mentioned Jamps.

Honestly, dwarfs do not interest me as much as they should. I just don't see the big deal. The only true beneficial aspect of them to me is that someone can still own a Retic if they live in an area where size limitations restrict snake ownership to smaller individual snakes.

If someone else can shed some light on this subject, I would be very interested in learning more about this as well.
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Rob Clark

I cannot speak for all of the kinds of "dwarf" retics, but I have 1.1 Super Dwarf X Jamp dwarf retics and they are both closing in on 5 years of age. Neither has been power fed, although they do get good sized meals every 10 to 14 days. As for size, well they are much bigger than most reports of dwarfs. The female is closing in on 14 feet and the male is around 13 feet. The female weighs in over 80 pounds. The male is around 60 pounds. They are sexually mature at this age and size and the female produced 38 eggs last year (none hatched I believe primarily because I let her do the incubating, although I could be wrong). From what I gather from others keeping some of the smaller locales is that most are getting to longer lengths and larger girths then previously reported. All I know for sure is that my dwarfs are much bigger then I thought they would be, but they are great snakes none the less.
Shane

Many people work with the various dwarf locales now, so whatever you do look for cbb babies. I would recommend to steer clear of any wc retics... you see them a lot, but they're just not worth the trouble for most people IMO.

As far as who to talk to, just look on the classifieds...

The Jampea/superdwarf crosses that Mike Wilbanks produced back in 2002 did in fact grow in excess of superdwarf proportions, but they did not outgrow Jampea proportions. I think if anyone were to repeat such a pairing, using a small superdwarf female (rather than a Jampea female) the results would most likely be different. ALL other true superdwarf crosses that I am ware of resulted in animals that grow only slightly larger than your typical (pure) superdwarf. This dwarf stuff seems to confuse the hell out of most people, but time and experience appears to be dispelling ignorance (slowly).

I've worked with just about all of the popular locales, and can tell you that superdwarves can get bigger than 7 ft! I cared for a 10' female, but she's the biggest I've seen. Most females are in the 8' range. The males are smaller, but still get to be around 6-7'. Think large rat snakes. They DO NOT get as big as Jamps.