Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested in getting a reticulated python, or a borneo bat eater. I have kept snakes of 10ft but never large pythons, They were all Boa Constrictors. What would be a good first choice? Should I start with a dwarf?

Get what you want. You can as alot of people say "grow with the animal". In the first year a normal retic can be as large as 12ft or more. I don't do hyrbids so I wouldn't no much about the borneo bat eatter (who named them and why this name? just curious?). Anyways...don't get something you won't be happy with and end up selling to get what you want down the road. I have kept 10 1/2ft bali retics and that's a pretty big animal. A 9ft red tail is larger then a 10 1/2ft retic in weight/girth. So I don't think that would pose a problem. I have a 6-7ft 3-4 yrs old (about?) female kayaudi dwarf retic. Her head is around 4 inches long and she's not as thick as alot of the adult pine snakes I've seen. Basicly they are like giant colubrids. Again get what you want.
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John Light
Pristine Pythons
ristinePythons@Hotmail.com" target="_blank">Contact Me

If you are looking for a retic and aren't looking for one that gets that big, better to go with a male, although some males can still get pretty large, but still smaller then females most of the time, otherwise if you can afford to get a dwarf species you can go with that as well, they are fun snakes to work with either way, I don't know of many people or breeders that have any bateaters available, but you could always check around with some, although that will probably cost you a bit of money as well, probably more then a dwarf at least, and since bateaters are fairly hard to produce that might be another reason you don't see too many.

As for how they got the name, apparently the guy who first had them was trying to make them sound like a new snake species, and so he called them borneo bateaters, saying they came from borneo, and they ate bats, from what I have read at least, I believe nerd has some info on their backround though on their site, and there are a few topics on forums about them and how they came about. Either way wheather you get a retic or not just be sure you can care for it properly as an adult, no matter what species..as you know there are a few large jampeas out there, such as the 15 ft at nerd, and shaun debord's 13 ft..sorry if this was a bit long, just thought I would try and give what I could info. wise..

Amelia