Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Howdy

I know some of you work with bogertophis, specifically rosaliae, and was wondering if anyone has ever noticed size differences between M's and F's at maturity? Triaspis and subocs seem to have a size difference, but what about rosaliae? I was sold a "yearling female" that I am beginning to suspect was really a male and I was taken for a $450 ride...

Hopefully this is not one of those "Fool me once" scenarios...
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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

Brett,

To my knowledge, nothing concrete has been studied or published on that account. You may want to ask Ian Recchio. He'd be as able to answer that as anyone I can think of, since he works with several adult pairs.

My guess is that, like subocs, males tend to be only slightly larger. But that's just the overall trend -- probably my largest suboc (of 120-plus animals) is a female. Then again, my females usually get fed more than males.

Cheers and good luck,

Dusty
Suboc.com

Hey Dusty, interesting, so on average your males are bigger eh? My female blond from RG down in Tejas is absolutely monsterous compared to her mate which is the same age (different litter), they were the same size as neos but she has blown past him in growth in the last year. I thought perhaps with rosaliae there might be some size difference as my supposed female from Tim is huge while a male that I got from Dan is still on the small side (even though it eats f/t like a champ). Tim has kind of dropped out of the picture so I guess I am stuck with a fine pair of male rosaliae lol...Just goes to show, make sure you have an agreement in place for when that "yearling female" turns out to be a yearling male...I wish I was more adept at probing, I invested alot of $ and time raising these guys up and have been going back and forth for over a year with Tim trying to get this sorted out but nothing has happened and at this point I am left with the impression that I got taken for a $450 ride down the bogertophis highway...

ciao

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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

are you not able to sex it?

Hi Russ, well it was sold to me as a "yearling female" from a prolific breeder of these animals so I did not question the sex, hes a guru, should know them on sight right?, well it appears that this is not the case. I even took macros of vent, tail, body, and asked him to compare them to females in his colony. According to him this will not work, heck the guy wouldnt even send me like pictures of HIS females so I could look for myself. Since he has dropped out of sight I am left with the impression that this has turned into one of those "fool me once" scenarios...

I do not buy many snakes, but I can tell you after this debacle ALL future purchases will involve contracts of one kind or another which detail all the pertinents, and if people are not willing to stand behind their word they wont get my $.
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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

sounds fair to me. If you sell snakes long enough, you are bound to mis-sex one eventually. Did this person offer to swap it out? If it's a young snake....even a yearling you should be able to apply pressure below the vent and above the vent with your thumbs and gently pop the hemipene assuming there is one. After much practice and buying a couple thousand dollars worth of ball morphs a few years back I've found this skill to be a must if you want to avoid getting ripped off.

Good luck.