Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a pair of couperi last summer, captive-bred from England.

They are doing fine, but I think that both animals' tails are deformed. They appear to taper too abruptly. The picture is of the female ( I think), the male is not so extreme.

Is this a common incubation defect, or is this in fact the normal appearance for this species? I'm not too worried about it, I consider it at worse to be a cosmetic defect.

I would appreciate any comments.

Thanks

It doesn't look like a typical indigo at all. Although the cause is probably different, it reminds me of way adult cornsnakes can get in captivity, with extremely broad body at the cloaca and abruptly tapering tail.

I have had a couple of indigos hatch that look very similar to this; we don't know if it is due to incubation temp fluctuations, or, genetic; but we're working on it. The few that we had over the years that ended up like this grew into wonderful animals but we decided to not put them back into our breeding program until we can have a better idea on what caused it.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>It doesn't look like a typical indigo at all. Although the cause is probably different, it reminds me of way adult cornsnakes can get in captivity, with extremely broad body at the cloaca and abruptly tapering tail.
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Hello,

No, that is not normal. I had a female that looked like that. I noticed it when she was a baby, but I thought nothing of it because I had never seen another indigo baby & had nothing to compare it to. When I got another baby the following year it became apparent that something was wrong.

I kept her for nearly 3 years. She grew VERY heavy but never put on any length. In fact, she was only about 38" at 3 years of age. A definite dwarf.

How old are yours? What is their size? Do they seem short & fat?
The dwarf I mentioned reminded me of a black ball python.

Eric
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If Jesus is your co-pilot, you'd better change seats!

I have an adult female with this same appearence. She seems to be a "dwarf" but is still a wonderfull snake. Thanks Rob!
I will never attempt to breed her as I don't think she would be able to pass eggs. She has no problem passing digested mice though! LOL
Mike

Mike's Monitors!

It's funny that you and Eric made mention of this; these were the only two incidences of "dwarfism" with any of my eastern indigo breedings. And, these two, if my records are correct, came from the same clutch. I kept back one female from that same clutch who is a monster....really weird. Could be genetics, temperatures fluctuations, may never know. BUT, as Mike mentioned, these still turn out to be wonderful animals; Mike's as a pet and another at a museum in Alabama who absolutely LOVES this animal for their education programs. Happy endings. Rob

>>I have an adult female with this same appearence. She seems to be a "dwarf" but is still a wonderfull snake. Thanks Rob!
>>I will never attempt to breed her as I don't think she would be able to pass eggs. She has no problem passing digested mice though! LOL
>>Mike
>>
>>Mike's Monitors!
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

I have seen a wild D. m erebennus which appeared to be diminutive in size, as the head and girth were that of a specimen of mature size, while the specimen itself was no greater then 40".
I have heard of dwarfism in wild D. couperi, but I have never actually seen one myself, though I do have dwarf specimens of both couperi and erebennus within my collection, both are for educational purposes only and I believe such specimens would surly expire trying to pass a clutch of eggs.
Dwarfism has been noted among a great number of flora and fauna, with a variety of hereditary and metabolic disorders being capable of causing the disorder. It does appear to be quite rare, so the odds of obtaining such a specimen from a clutch of eggs derived from “normal” sized adults would be minute…

Best regards,

Jeff
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

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n/p

not all that uncommon either. It seems every now and then one or two appear with this marked tapering at the cloaca.
As Rob has already mentioned, the jury is still out, regarding the cause of this anomaly.
I too have noticed that the two dwarf specimens I currently have, 0.1 D. m erebennus and a 1.0 D. couperi, harbor the same cloacal taper.

Best regards,

Jeff.
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

Hi!
Did you pay the full price for this snake? How much a snake like that can be sell? Did some of you breed this to see if the baby are normal? Is this normal to sell snake with such deformity? At my point of view, snakes like that are runt

Hi folks,

Thanks for all your imput.The snake in question is not a dwarf.
I bought the snakes last year and they were about 2 feet/60cm long and still had the white freckling that hatchlings have.

I am therefore assuming they were 2004 hatchlings.They are doing fine and are now at least double that size.One has a red chin, the other more white. I'll post more pictures of them as soon as I iron out some internet problems at home.