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I have to write a paper on a herp of my choice for my herpetology class. My resources have to be peer reviewed and published. I would love to write on Python brongersmai, but was wondering I would have enough resources to write a 15 page paper. Any information on resources would be great.

Thank you.

Dan McCauley

Dan-

In my opinion (coming from a student), there is probably not enough information on P. brongersmai in journals to write an extensive 15 page paper (assuming double spaced and 12pt font without figures). Unfortunately, there is actually very little pythonid or boid information in peer-reviewed literature on a single species.

There is a great deal of info on P. molurus regarding their digestive physiology, but there is only scant information on their natural history. Morelia spilota might be a good option for a topic-perhaps even the best-if you're stuck on doing a pythonid. There will be much more information on North American species, but those are a bit boring...

If you can broaden your topic I suspect your challenge will be substantially easier.

~Brian
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www.squamations.com

I don't know if you will be able to find enough information for 15 pages just on the brongersmai. Have you considered doing the entire python curtus group and then show the differences in the 3 sub species as well as locals? You would have more more luck with something like that rather than just the brong. Good Luck.
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Abby L.
3.28.0 Balls
Lemons, Spider, Normals,Genetic Stripe
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0.7 Sumatran Red bloods
AIM abster1231

here would be my main sources:
Just looked through my books, here is what i could come up with:

The reproductive husbandry of Pythons and boas by Ross
Reptiles, Jan. 96.
Reptiles, Feb. 96
Vivarium vol 6, issue no. 3
Living Snakes of the world by Mehrtens
Nonvenomous Snakes by Trutnau
Snakes by Harry Greene
Pythons and Boas by Stafford, sucky book, but a reference none the less

Search the web too, vpi, nerd, proexotics...there is also a paper floating out there by D. Barker and some other people detailing the differences between brong, curtus and breit.

15 pages would be tough, you'd be better off writing about pythons in general.

also check out cagecrafters forum. there is some really good info on there, one thread shows what makes each of the three different.

here is a link to the paper, also found on cagecrafters.

http://www.anu.edu.au/BoZo/Scott/PDF Files/2001.Keoghetal.P.curtus.pdf
http://www.anu.edu.au/BoZo/Scott/PDF Files/2001.Keoghetal.P.curtus.pdf

If you can find an online database (the equivalent of say pubmed) for herpetology information, that would be your best bet. I did a quick google search, and came up with some links... I have NO IDEA about the quality of these resources, but they might give you a good starting point.

http://www.herplit.com/herplit/

http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/~uetz/db-info/publications.html

http://www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/nwrc-cnrf/ratl/index_e.cfm

http://www.nbii.gov/datainfo/syscollect/by_type/herpetology.php

http://www.lib.duke.edu/bes/reptiles/herpresources.htm