Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my 6 foot jungle carpet python shed the other day and i noticed some areas down her body where her scales turned white. does anyone know why this happened and if it's a normal thing? she is black/yellow and now she has these white areas. i posted on the python and carpet python forums with no responses. does anyone know........thanks.

I'll go straight out and say I know next to nothing about pythons. Having said so, it sounds like this may just be a bad shed. Did the shed come off all in one piece? Or could you tell? You may want to try a warm water soak followed by running him through a warm damp towel to rub down from his head to tail, and if this is just a part of his shed that didn't come off...doing this a couple times should get any other parts off.
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-Chris

The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

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Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Black Rat (Frankie)
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sounds like a possible loss of melanin.....happened in the kenyan sand boa.....almost like a piebald

or maybe your python was supposed to have white scales as an adult and it is starting to acquire them

show some pics

keith
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I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side -- I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts.

thanks for your replys. i though about it being a shedding issue but she had a complete shed. i tried to spray the area (there are a couple of areas like this) with water and just rub alittle to see if it could be old skin but it looks like the scales have turned white. i don't know if carpet pythons loose color as they get bigger. like i said no one replies on the python forums...

Looks like normal color loss. A couple of my snakes have the same thing on a few spots that appeared as they got older. My corn is the most noticeable, and I would say that is just a part of the snakes natural variable color.

Hope this helps.
Brian
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RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian

Just speculation, but do you have any lights in your cage? Seems unlikely that only that area would be burned (especially on that part the body), but one of mine burned itself awhile ago and over a period of a week or two the scales turned that color.
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Current Collection:
0.1 Antherystic elaphe guttata guttata - Corn Snake
1.0 Elaphe vulpina gloydi - Eastern Fox Snake
0.1 Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta - Black Rat Snake
0.1 Leucistic elaphe obsoleta linheimeri - Texas Ratsnake
1.1 Morelia spilota cheyni - Jungle Carpet Python
0.1 Tiliqua scincoides intermedia - Northern Blue Tongue Skink

I have her set up in an 80 gallon tank with UTH, basking light for day and red light for night. There is nothing in her tank to burn her. she has a few branches stretching across her tank and one is under the light but when the light comes on she will move. She did have a couple of other scales that were krinkly (sp?) looking that I thought were a burn but after this shed they look much better and are still black. I'm going with the possibility that she just lost color in those areas since she is reaching the max size for a JCP (6-8 foot). They don't look like burns.
Another thought is I use reptile bark....would that have anything to do with it????????

My snakes are all in a rack system and get their light from the sunlight filtering in the windows. I use flexwatt heat tape to heat the cages and it isnt hot enough to burn anything.

As far as substrate I keep mine on newspaper. So IMHO, it is normal color loss/change due to age/genetics.
Brian

>>Just speculation, but do you have any lights in your cage? Seems unlikely that only that area would be burned (especially on that part the body), but one of mine burned itself awhile ago and over a period of a week or two the scales turned that color.
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>>Current Collection:
>>0.1 Antherystic elaphe guttata guttata - Corn Snake
>>1.0 Elaphe vulpina gloydi - Eastern Fox Snake
>>0.1 Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta - Black Rat Snake
>>0.1 Leucistic elaphe obsoleta linheimeri - Texas Ratsnake
>>1.1 Morelia spilota cheyni - Jungle Carpet Python
>>0.1 Tiliqua scincoides intermedia - Northern Blue Tongue Skink
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RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian