Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well i am curious now. some poeple say bloods get more red the older they get,,i am wondering is that is a special kind or morph or if mine will change. i have had mine for 2 months now and i love him the way he is but it would be sweet if he changed in color,,,by the way i will have another in a couple weeks they are definitly my favorite out of all my snakes... well an input would be sweet!!

Jeff

The majority tend to get more redder as they age, as most blacks tend to get blacker and Borneos tend to get darker. Generally if you start out with a snake thats pretty bright red hes gonna be really friggin red as an adult, but if there a brown color they probably wont get very red... its more of a darkening process than a color morph typically.. just my experience

Jordan
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Hey,
Well as Jordan mentioned, there is a narrow probability for an animal to get redder if there is very little reddish coloration in the animal to begin with. The redder animals or Bloods, tend to get redder if they all ready have a predetermined amount of red coloration in it with higher contrast. If an animal starts out with a pretty fair amount of red or orange in it, then there is a higher probability that it will develop the more typical red or orange back ground associated with Bloods as adults. However, if there is little to no red or orange in the background color, that color intensity will not develop or morph into something outstanding as the animal matures.

Most animals that you see on the market are not as red as the ones you would typically see hailing from Mainland Malaysia or Bangka or any of the other surrounding Insular populations from the Malacca straits. There are exceptions though, and some of the redder animals are bred from the more redder stock imported from Northern Sumatra.

-Angel
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Discovered and defeated of your prey, You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away. --Dryden.

I agree. But I have had very bright red bloods that turn dark red. Many pythons develop melanin with age. I'd rather that my bloods stay that brilliant red, instead of the darker reds. But I still love the oxblood colors. Browner bloods usually turn to darker brown bloods, red bloods usually turn into dak red, blacks turn really black, but of course NOT in ALL cases.
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"Life is what you make it, not what you make up."-murs

I would have to disagree slightly on the color change from juvenile to adult coloration in brongersmai. I have seen a fair number of juveniles start out as plain brown and tan snakes that turned out to be very red as adults. That juvenile coloration can really fool you. I have seen newborns that I would swear on turning out as nice red adults, that ended up being, at best, dull orange at 4 or 5 years. I have also seen newborns that I would swear on ending up being plain brown as adults, turn out to be some of the reddest I’ve seen. I will agree however, that the redder as a hatchling the better. The male that is pictured in my March 11 post was a plain brown hatchling and had no hint of red in his coloration until he was over a year old. I am posting three photos of a male I hatched in the late 80’s. I just happen to have a photo history of a good color change as an example. These are digital captures of slides and don’t show up real well but it should give a decent idea of the change. I took photos at 3 weeks, 6 months, and 2 years. The last slide in the series has been lost, (loaned out and disappeared), but it would have shown him at 5 years. He was considerably more red at 5 years, than in the posted 2 year photo, a nice deep red. Norm is correct in that the nice red ones do darken in later age, usually to a dark brick red or dark oxblood color. They seem at their best color to me at 4 to 6 years.

Kelly

Male at 3 weeks.

Male at 6 months.

Male at 2 years.

I have seen this happen also. My post was meant for "subadults" like 3 to 4 feet in length. After this length, I rarely see such a dramatic color change, except with the darkening of the color. But these observations are just in my experiences.
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"Life is what you make it, not what you make up."-murs

It's hard to see in the 2 year old picture of the male above because it is such poor quality, but he was just starting to show some red. At this point he was 3.5 to 4 feet. The red really came on between year 2 and year 4 and he did not put on much more than a foot or so of length. This has been the basic trend with most of the brongersmai I've worked with. I don't think size has much to do with their coloration, it is more a matter of age.

Kelly