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Are some of the hondo morphs expected to be larger adults than others? I know that the “common” tangerines can grow to be six footers and more. Do snows and extremes for example,typically reach this length?

Thanks!

Dan

Really hard to say,
I have never seen a very large extreme hondo but really somebody has some?

I did work with a very large strain of hondos that where het for only anery and hatched out very big (16-20 inches) and reached 5.5 feet in two years.

Here is one of the adults.

L8r

Thanks, Shannon... That's a monster there; beautiful animal!
In your experience, do Snows get to be about 5 feet long when they are adults, or do they stay on the small side?

Dan

Dan, I have never seen a five foot snow but I am sure somebody has one.

Dan, here's my thought on this......

I've heard lots of people claiming certain morphs are larger and more robust than others over the years, and certainly some morphs of any particular individual's bloodline(s) might very well be larger than others. But my logic tells me these are only a certain individual's bloodline of certain morphs they might have, and are not necesarily the same sized animals someone else might have of the very same type either.

When you think about this, many of the phenotypes we see in the hobby now are a genetic composite of several other morphs anyway, so for example,....someone's amel phenotype would also be carrying a hypo and/or anery gene as well, so all this is really a he said/she said thing as far as I am concerned, and there is zero hard evidence that I have ever come across to prove any of this would be realistically valid at all.

Not ony that, but with any individual snake, there are so darn many factors that come into play that would govern a single specimens ultimate size and growth rate as well. Even if two, or even 100 people had the exact same bloodline of any morph of the same age, size, etc...at the same time, most ALL these people could easily have drastically different results from one another at the end of a three year period. Every single one of the specimens would have to be kept in the identically exact environmental conditions, be fed the exact same sized prey, same TYPE of prey, same exact temperatures over the course of the three years, etc...

This would have to be a totally controlled deal with MANY different types of morphs involved, and MANY, MANY different specimens of all the different types, and this just is not realistic to do. When you consider all the different bloodlines that are out there now, it just doesn't seem to me to be likely to tell one way or the other with any real continuity. One guys amels would have another guys anery line it, and another guys hypo's could have this guys anery, or that guys amel line in it as well, see what I mean?, almost none of them are from one bloodline continually being propagated, they are for the most part a big slurry of genotypes.

Now there might have been a chance that some of the very first original lines of morphs "could" have possibly had some sort of size difference in comparison to a couple others, but today these morphs are simply a huge "slurry" of many different bloodlines, so it would seem quite impossible to conclude any of this at this late date in my opinion.

Everyone I know has big robust stuff, as well as the very slow smaller growers of all different types. I think most people that have also been in this many years would tend to also agree with all this.

Just too darn many variables involved with this to really conclude anything worth mentioning.

best regards, ~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Got it, Doug; thanks for the great answer. That head shot closeup is amazing!

Dan

Thanks, and you're welcome man!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

The only six footers I've ever seen were Norm Damm's and these were old normals. I've got a 21 year old Honduran now, and like most snakes, Hondurans never stop growing. So it's possible that some morphs may hit six feet if they get old enough.

One the other hand, I think morphs in general do not attain the size of their wild counterparts. The record size for a wild corn is six feet, yet most corn morphs are 5 feet long or less as adults (from the corns I've seen). I'm pretty sure there have been six foot normal Ball Pythons, but most morphs of these snakes are less than feet long (from what I've seen).

Tim

Third Eye