Make you a deal, you tell me where you got yours and I will tell you how to sex them LOL.



I recently spoke to a very high up person in Herpetology who asked me that same question, I am truly surprised how many do not know how to sex acros. This question I received was about javanicus, but sexing is the same for all three species



Heres what I wrote that person:



It is a common misconception that elephant trunks are hard to

sex. On the contrary Richard Shine said in his 191 paper on Acrochordian feeding habits that acrochords are in his opinion the single most dimorphic snake family! The reason many get confused as to sexing them is that the most common two methods do not work. You can not probe them with any hope of accuracy since they have no ventral scales to count and their tails are fragile. Of course since they have such thin muscular walls relatively speaking their entire bodies are fragile. Therefore popping is also a dangerous proposition that more often than not

can damage or kill a young fragile acrochord. However there are many key visual traits that differencaite the two sexes. The first is head size. Females jaws are much broader, and their entire face wider in contrast to

the males.



Here is a picture I took to illustrate that...



http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e289/snakemastermyke/towacros.jpg



Second females are more heavy bodied with less defined necks. This is harder to tell on young ones, however the less neck definition is barely

visible...



http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e289/snakemastermyke/PICT7764.jpg



(the lighter one on top is the female)



Third the males tail is much longer. In that last picture the tails are cut off so you can't tell. the males tail is curled in the paper towel quiet a bit. It is not that the females have small tails, just short than that of a male. Also the males tails are much bulgier which is most visible from the ventral side.

Finally color. Now this in my opinion is anecdotal at best, however Shine does mention it in his report on feeding differentials between the sexes of a. javanicus. (This report details the facts that female acros are sit and wait ambush predators while males are active searchers, yet another

dimorphic quality of some note.) In the picture above (and again below)you see how the female is much lighter and less contrasting than the male.The reason I discount this is acrochords are so variable between ranges that one might miss sex an animal simply due to its locality. I find this variance barely notable unless one has two animals from the exact same

location.



http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e289/snakemastermyke/PICT7764.jpg
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