Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just a dark female I thought I would share.

Hate to correct you but that is no brongersmai...

That is definately P. breitensteini otherwise a Borneo Short-tailed Python. Check and you will see a very small set of scales running under the eye and just above the labial or lip scales.

Pretty animal.

Here are some of my borneos and you will see one very similar.

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I have received conflicting reports about the species of my female blood (I am using that as a universal term), but showed the same pics to Tracy Barker at VPI and here is what she had to say:
"Chris,

Well, actually it isn’t a brongersmai or a breitensteini (Borneo). It is a Python curtus, Sumatran short-tail python, one of our favorites!! These snakes are seen in a variety of colors-but the body is all black, with either a black, orange, yellow, or silver head.

Tracy"

I trust the Barker's opinion more than any other persons' on this subject from the internet, especially when it comes to these pythons, as they have worked with more of them than any other person in the states. Thanks for the reply.
Chris

sucks..

Yes, I would agree Tracy and Dave know their stuff. It is hard to tell between Borneos and Sumatran Blacks, IMO. Several years ago, I went round and round with Dave Barker and others in identifying my dark male and the final result was identifying it as P. breitensteini (Borneo). One helpful point was the fact it is a male at almost six feet in length now and I have not seen a P. curtus that big (male or female).

Just shows how much more we need to work on this group.
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Support your local herp society
www.chicagoherp.org

If it was a curtis why did you label it a brong? I personally wouldn't say for sure from that picture. The color looks more like a black but the pattern looks more like a borneo. I would lean towards a borneo myself since I have seen some that color. Not to interfier with what Tracy said tho. Did you send her a head shot? Or do you have a good one you can post? Thats pretty much the only way to tell for sure.

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

At first I had been told that it was a brongersmai, so that is what I had been calling it, but I just found out today from Tracy that it is really neither of the two. It personally was not important to me to conclude with one hundred percent certainty the correct species. I guess if I had the energy, I would refer to the text and start counting scales. However, ATP expenditure must be taken into account, and we all know how difficult it can be just to walk to the refrigerator to grab a cold one, let alone to hold that hulking body still to count scales. However, from now on I will refer to her as a P. curtus. I have dealt with enough snakes and lizards in taxonomical hell, so maybe I should just call her "the big lazy thing" the next time I post a pic of her...LOL.