Eventually I will get a website up and running when i have a bit more money and start learning webpage technique.
Here is what i observed in my trio. Hope it works well...
MSWord format.
Notes on the Reproduction of Apodora papuana in Captivity.
Douglas A. Chapnick
Introduction.
I obtained a 1.2 trio of captive born and bred papuan pythons (Apodora papuana) in the summer of 1995 at the New York Metro Reptile Expo in White plains, New York. Since then, I have had the pleasure of caring for and observing the behavior of these exceptional animals. Apodora have a uniquely shaped head, a blue tongue, a long prehensile tail, and reach an average adult length of 12 feet. In addition to being one of the tamest snakes I have had, they have displayed a strong ability to cope with stress; the trio has put up very well with several long road trips, cold periods due to faulty heating setups, and an incident this past summer where both my females suffered thermal burns at several spots along their back. In December, during a road trip from New York to where I now live in Colorado, I found myself in a hotel room in Ohio with faulty heating. As a result, the only way I could keep the trio anywhere near acceptable temperatures was to tuck them and myself into a bed, covered in blankets, and incubate them as if they were my eggs; I have grown to enjoy their company tremendously and I will keep these specimens for as long as they live.
Preparation for the breeding period.
My male began copulating with one of my females last year (2004) at the age of 8.5 years. However, that female did not even begin to develop follicles, most likely due to me moving her during the breeding season from my parents’ home to where I attended college in central New York. This year, I attribute the production of a successful clutch of eggs to a longer cooling period, a stable lifestyle, and the very dry Colorado air that made management of humidity fairly easy.
For most of the year, the trio is kept in an environment where the ambient temperature is 82 ºF in addition to a hot side (basking site) of the cage, where temperatures reach a maximum of 95 ºF and the average humidity is 50-60% . Starting in August I began cooling the trio stepwise. First, I reduced the ambient temperature from 82 ºF to 78-80 ºF. In addition, I reduced the humidity to about 40% by not misting the cages and using newspaper as a substrate. This period lasted for four months, during which feeding was decrease from once every two weeks (half grown chickens) to one jumbo rat every three weeks. For most of December (three weeks), I cooled the trio from 78-80 ºF to an ambient temperature of 75-77 ºF. I accomplish this temperature reduction by reducing the heat pad that covers 60% of the cage floor to approximately 85 ºF (my cages are large Christmas tree decorations storage boxes, so they don’t retain heat well, producing slightly lower temperatures close to the walls compared to the center). I would not worry too much about respiratory infections because my Apodora have proven to cope very well with temperatures in the mid seventies (ºF) without any sign of infection in the two years that I have attempted breeding. I believe the inductive heat from the heat pads provides sufficient heat for digestion. During the first three weeks of December, the humidity was also lowered from 40% to 25-30% (ambient humidity in Boulder, Colorado is very low).
For the last week of December, I increased the heat pad temperature to 88 ºF, which brings the ambient temperature up to 80-83 ºF and began adding a little bit of water to the substrate to raise the humidity to approximately 50 %. Due to the design of my cage, where a Flex-Watt heat tape heats an 11” wide strip down the middle of the cage, lengthwise, lots of condensation occurs on the walls every night, producing a cool hour or two in the morning where the ambient temperature is actually 75-78 ºF. This is like artificial morning dew! During this period, the female that subsequently developed follicles stopped eating entirely.
I am confident that a slightly simpler breeding regimen can yield successful egg deposition, especially with proven breeder specimens. However, this regimen has worked once, which is better than not at all.
Period of Copulation.
On Jan. 1, I changed the substrate to aspen chips and added water to bring the humidity to around 70%. However, the aspen chips began to smell like acetic acid, so I switched to peat moss, that I had soaked in water and then squeezed any excess water from; this provided 80-90% humidity. Also on Jan. 1, I began introducing the male into one female’s cage for two days at a time, with four days in between. I witnessed copulation within two hours of introduction in almost every introduction. The female, now named Sophie, shed on Dec. 31, and I left the shed in with her and the male for their “date” on Jan 1-3. Copulation occurred for approximately 1-2 hours, each time that was observed, and was observed twice during each “date” (not including the 7 hours at night). Before introducing the male to Sophie for visits following the initial visit, I wet Sophie’s shed from Dec. 31 and wiped her body down with the damp shed in an attempt to spread a scent that is suspected to be released during ecdysis, causing males to smell and seek out females during the breeding periods.
On Jan 4, Sophie began sitting with an inverted posture for 1-8 hours at a time, usually when the temperature and humidity of the cage was at its highest. Follicle development was noticeable starting in mid January, and I was able to feel 17 follicles by palpitation, which turned into two infertile and 15 fertile eggs after ovulation.
Photo on left displays Sophie with developing follicles, while the photo on the right displays ovulation.
Sophie was observed to ONLY rest in the coolest part of the cage at 77-80 ºF until ovulation, which had no heat pad directly underneath. As the follicles began to develop, the region exactly halfway down her body began to harden and swell to about two times its girth before follicle development began. Swelling due to ovulation was observed for a duration of 15 hours on Feb. 14. Between ovulation and egg deposition, the temperature of the heat pad under the cage was raised to 88-90 ºF, producing an ambient temperature of 80-82 ºF . In addition, the substrate on one side of the cage was replaced with dry sphagnum moss, producing a dry laying spot with humid air above. A Prelay shed was observed on Feb. 29.
Egg Deposition.
On March 30th at 5 am Sophie laid one deformed egg, which I removed and placed in the incubator. She laid the remaining 16 eggs exactly 24 hours after the first egg. All eggs were incubated artificially at 89.6 ºF, suspended over a water reservoir in a closed 5 gallon plastic box . Two eggs were small and brown, appearing infertile, while the remaining 15 appear fertile. Figure 1 displays the ratio of egg length to egg weight directly after deposition, prior to artificial incubation.
grams cm
50.7 6.9
48.5 7.0
102.2 8.3
75.2 8.2
111.0 9.5
84.7 8.3
99.2 7.8
89.5 7.6
104.8 8.1
102.1 8.4
99.6 8.0
108.1 9.6
106.6 9.2
102.3 8.3
79.0 8.1
95.6 7.9
74.8 8.2
Average weight of the fertile eggs was 95.6 g. The total clutch weighed 1533.9 g.
