How can you tell the difference between a dwarf retic and a mainland?

[KyleKennedy]

If you have a juvie retic, how can you be 100 percent sure that it is a dwarf or a mainland? I recently got a 7 month old alleged mainland that is around 4 feet. I am starting to think it may be a dwarf considering how stocky his head is. I know mainlands have long slender heads. How can I know for certain though? Thank you

I will try to upload pics soon to give you a better understanding of what I am talking about when I say his head is stocky

[Pirarucu]

You can know for certain by knowing what the parents were. Nobody would sell a dwarf as a mainland, dwarfs are much more valuable. It's a pretty hard detail to forget too.

If it was sold as a mainland, it's almost certainly a mainland.

[Sublimeballs]

The scale count on the top of the head is the best way to tell. Aswell as having a good eye for locales. If you have a retic in question post a pic of the top of the head and ill be able to tell you. Ive got true dwarves(m.r. Jampeanus), a selayar(some consider them mid sized but I'm inclined to say dwarf due to the fact they average smaller than jampeas; M.r. Saputrai), and bali yellowheads. Here's where it's gonna confuse some, balis are a dwarf mainland. They belong to the subspecies M.R. Reticulatus(or mainlands) but typically top out less than 15 foot.

[millertime89]

The only way you can tell for certain is if you know the locality of the parents or do genetic testing. Scale count is a good indicator but not 100% since there are so many crosses. You've also got the head thing backwards, dwarfs have longer, more slender heads and mainlands have bigger, stockier heads.

[Sublimeballs]

The only way you can tell for certain is if you know the locality of the parents or do genetic testing. Scale count is a good indicator but not 100% since there are so many crosses. You've also got the head thing backwards, dwarfs have longer, more slender heads and mainlands have bigger, stockier heads.

True on the crosses. I've seen some weird counts out of crosses.


Good eye on the head thing I looked right past it. If we bring saputrai a into the mix; Then mainlands heads look long.lol. Saputrais have the "bull dog" heads of the retic world.

[millertime89]

True on the crosses. I've seen some weird counts out of crosses.


Good eye on the head thing I looked right past it. If we bring saputrai a into the mix; Then mainlands heads look long.lol. Saputrais have the "bull dog" heads of the retic world.

My old roommate had one of the original (if not THE original, we weren't sure, but he was from the first clutch of them) sun tigers. 10ft long and his head was HUGE. Larger than my 15 ft sun platty female's head by a good bit.

[Sublimeballs]

Any chance you know where suns originated from? I'm so happy Aubrey got the OG pure selayar GC.... I'm gonna make pure selayar GCs

[millertime89]

Any chance you know where suns originated from? I'm so happy Aubrey got the OG pure selayar GC.... I'm gonna make pure selayar GCs

Bob Clark. IIRC he imported an animal that turned out to be a super sun IIRC.

[KyleKennedy]

Here he is. I don't know if you would be able to tell just by looking at the pic though. My issue is that the previous owner is an idiot and wasn't a breeder so he doesn't know who the parents are. He got the snake from a reptile show, but he doesn't remember seeing or hearing about the parents. I didn't buy it, I traded my tiger for it thinking it would be a monster sized snake. Turns out it is only like 4 feet long.

[KyleKennedy]

Here's the tiger I traded for the normal. His parents were 18 foot and 14 foot. I seen the parents when I purchased the tiger. But when it comes to the mainland, I have no idea who the parents are.

[KyleKennedy]

The normal mainland doesn't have the yellow in his patterning like most mainlands I noticed. He's darker than all the ones I have seen, even after shedding he is still has brownish/black patterns, hardly any yellow. Could that be used to determine what exact type of retic this is?

[millertime89]

Can you get a better picture with more light? I can't tell much from that picture. Doesn't look like a dwarf to me though.

[KyleKennedy]

My phone takes crappy pics sorry. This pic is the best I can do. He looks a alot lighter here in the pic, but in person he is much darker. In person you cannot see the yellow in his patterns that well, but in pics it shows up a little.

[KyleKennedy]

The first pic I sent when he was in the tub is how he looks. That shows his true colors. In this pic however, he looks a lot of different in the light.

[millertime89]

Yeah, I'm not seeing any dwarf there. Very much a classic mainland retic pattern there. If you can get some HD pictures of him we could probably even give you an idea of locality.

[KyleKennedy]

@millertime89 - So dwarves have a different pattern?

[millertime89]

@millertime89 - So dwarves have a different pattern?

And coloration too. If Sublime comes back through hopefully he can post some pics of his dwarfs. I've only got SD stuff which changes the pattern and color even more dramatically. I've got two dwarfs but they're motley and GC, both overpower any other pattern change that might be from being a dwarf.