Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm sorry you're very correct, and thank you for the wake up call. Each and every single animal is definetly an individual; and this is esspecially true with the retics.

We've still never personaly seen a fresh import that likes to be handled! Would it supprise me, YES... Infact it would friken amaze me and I want that animal please? :-P

Back to reality now... The fact is that I did try to aquire every dwarf that I could durring the late 90's and early 00's. I have been misled more than I can remember, I have quiet litteraly learned that you cannot trust anyone who sells "TRUE DWARFS" . I have had so many WC dwarfs that I am ashamed of the actual ammount. I also do not suggest that anyone but the most skilled herpetoculturists aquire any. Even then I am worried that they will not be avalible in the wild for our continued raping much longer simply because the islands are probably not large enough to support a huge population.

To make this a huge post, and try to explain what these animals are to me, I have aquired every article I could find online, as well as through obscure herpetocultural journals, and via zoological connections, that I could about reticulated pythons. (I have an article detailing the brain wave patterns of retics introduced to varrious stimuli) I also have notes that I have taken from talking to other breeders and hobbiests. I went as far as writing a 64 page booklet detailing the retic, there locales, morphs, and husbandry tricks and tips. I gathered photos of known locales and morphs, Im sure many of you remeber me asking for permision, for photos or to use material. It was simply a result of my own confusion, intrigue, and the avalible INCORECT information found in most easily avalible, caresheets and papers. Most seem to have been copied almost word for word from a single rock python care sheet that was writin in the pre CB era, by a person who had no experiance and was a founder of PETA... If you have read them and seen the inconsistancys you would know exactly what I am talking about.

Back to the subject of WC dwarfs...
Generaly speaking, it is very true that most WC dwarfs don't acclimate well to captivity.

Generaly speaking, it is very true that most WC dwarfs don't acclimate well to captivity.

There will be exceptions to every rule, and for that reason I should have said that "They usualy are quiet stressed and very predictable in there behavior." I can tell you in my experiance most all of them are quiet skitish and shy. Most are very reluctant to bite for any reason however, and infact, I still claim that I have not been bitin ever by a wc that was handled gently. I dont usualy reveal that I was bittin once by a Kayuadi. It was not a legitimate bite IMO... While trying to restrain an animal for medicating, I reached for its head durring an eppisode of insain flailing and flopping around in a mad attempt to be free again. My aim was about 2 inches off, and I ended up with a knuckle full of retic.... This is not aggression but a survival instinct, if you are being eaten you must fight to live right? A few WC animals have also made some psudo attempts at biting me before, however it was uncommon, they were unusualy slugish and seem to be bluffs, imo the animals were not trying to actualy bite but wanted me to think they were. I do wonder if the dwarfs may have "evolved" to be less aggressive due to the fact that as small retics generaly cannot overpower large animals and would have a much better chance of continued survival if they did not start violent conflicts. Speaking of evolution, if you have a CB animal you may notice they have a feeding responce that is hard to compair. I honestly belive that they are geneticaly diffrent, I would dare to assume that lack of prey on the islands, save bird migrations, ect., has culled any with weak responce to food. I would assume that is the reason the animals have also evolved to be smaller. My formula is no prey + big pythons = extiction. It is apperant that retics do very well at adaptation notice they litteraly have the largest range of any python in the world.

In my experiance, most WC dwarfs will often POO on you, that is a fact. A stereotype but its very consistant. I'm glad you brought it up; the fact is, I am very straight forward, and have very strong feelings about these animals. I tend to generalise due to experiance and come of as if everything I say is fact. I do have alot of experiance but at the same time I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE AN EXPERT on them. I don't believe that there is one infact. If you were to ask the others who have been involved with these animals, I am sure you would get many of the same answers about wc dwarfs behaviors, and common problems.

To throw gas on the subject I will be as strait forward here as possible "There have been litteraly heaps of dwarfs imported... hundreds would be a very safe assumption, there have been shipments coming for years. These are hot items they sell very well. That is apperant when you see WC Kayuadis being offered for 1500 a pair but at the same time you can get CB for less. It is apperant when you see every dwarf import being called a Super Dwarf.. Hundreds of imports and buyers, yet VERY VERY few successful captive breedings. The people who have had success do not seem to have any difficulty in there propogation, and are routinly successful WHY and how can that be??? In my experiance I would estimate that easily over half of the animals probably perish, the other half donot seem to acclimate to captivity, thoughs that finaly do likly do not breed due to the condition of there health after there "Stress period" wich seems to last several years... Quiet simply the successful few breeders were lucky enough to aquire either A) CB or B)CH animals. The few WC's that have actualy reproduced in captivity are the RARE exception. Very few hobbiests are willing to share photos of the horrible deformities there pythons aquire with time, due to reocuring mouthrot, tumors, migrating paracites, absesses, infections, and ect. Due to the fact they are ashamed of themselfs. Most likly throw in the towel when they realise it is not uncomon with these animals.. Quiet simply breeders and dealers dont show these photos because it portrays them as having inferior quality animals... Who wants to buy pythons from a guy who has grotesque animals?" Although I have been accused before, I simply am not the type of person that would say CB animals are the way to go just because I happen to breed and sell them, I simply love these animals and am trying to share my experiance, I do hope that it helps sombody else.

Also, it should not be particularly hard, for anyone to mistake a 6-7 ft "recent" adult import for a CB animal. 99 percent of the time wild collected adults of that size are quiet UNTAME (not to mean aggressive but generaly quiet shy of people, and very stressed by there captivity) as they are intelligent and have spent there lifes living wild. It should be remembered that these animals do not reach very large sizes in the wild at all, and a 7 ft animal would be very mature. I guess all I am realy saying in this novel is that anyone with experiance should be able to recognise a recent imported animal of that age.

I also DO NOT KNOW that, his (John's) particular animal is CB. I do believe I recognise it is all. John called me this weekend, and we spoke. What I told him is that... "You should be able to easily tell the diffrence between the two..." I belive it is a Jampea, only photos can tell if it is, but time will tell what it isn't anyhow...

As far as photographs of dwarfs (or any locale for that matter) are concerned, overhead shots of the body pattern and detailed shots of the head scaleation, and eye, are very much appreciated. I could also could use body scale counts...if you are crazy enough to count all the scales. It's easist to use perfect sheds vs. holding a ""squirmy WC."" In addition I can use sheds from some animals for DNA analysis.. But above all I deffinetly need as much background information on the animals as possible. More so than can stress with words...

These are some of the most jumbled and confuesing animals i know about. ID of locales is at best almost impossible, there simply is too much confusion, and lies, starting with the collectors, and moving all the way to the hobbiests. Nobody but the collector can say for sure where an animal was from, even then why say Jampea if you get more for saying Kayuadi? The same is true for the exporters, why say Kayuadi wich is what the collector said if you get more for saying super dwarf? What about the importers, and dealers? Do they know what the animals arem by the time they get them even? I dont but in every shipment you see animals that appear to be diffrent. I serriously dont know how much any of the reserch i can make on CB and collected animals will help. All I can do is collect information and try to publish it, unless we visit the area very soon to get documented data on what exisits where I am afraid we will never know, the locality of any captive animals reliably. There seems to be at least a few diffrences in the animals, they may be just be due to the variability of reticulatus, or may be locality specific traits, such diffrences are apparent in pattern shapes, pigmintation, morphs, scalation, size, behavior, and eye color. I wonder if the pet trade may cause the extinction of locale specific jampeanus or possibly even other non classified subspecies of retics in the area.

-Shaun DeBord

I'll work on getting you those pictures this week! Great info! I'm getting more and more into the dwarf retics and I'm all ears as I want to learn all I can!
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John Light
Pristine Pythons
ristinePythons@Hotmail.com" target="_blank">Contact Me

Had a guy call me today about the Kayaudi dwarf retics. He said mine is w.c. and he has 20 something to choose from (he bought all the others ben didn't in the shipment). Regardless w.c., c.b.b. doesn't make a difference to me! She's actually being kept on a pet basis. I may breed her but at this time she's purly a pet (when I get her a mate I plan on breeding her).
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John Light
Pristine Pythons
ristinePythons@Hotmail.com" target="_blank">Contact Me

Best of luck John, please let me know how things go for you. If you dont find a male you like I do have an extra. -Shaun D

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