giants pythons and their dwarf counterparts

[millertime89]

There has been recent discussion about retics and their dwarf and superdwarf counterparts so I figured I would share what I know. I'm also going to touch on dwarf burms and the recent description of burms as significantly different from the Indian rock python.

There is current discussion about whether or not the reticulated python is its own species, or whether it is a relative of the Timor python. Current scientific names for the two are either Python reticulatus and Python timorensis or Broghammerus reticulatus and Broghammerus timoriensis. For the purpose here the reticulated python will be considered a seperate species from the Timor python and will be listed as either Python reticulatus, P, reticulatus, or P.r.reticulatus for the mainland "locality".

To accurately describe the the dwarf subspecies we need a description of the mainland/normal as a basis. As many people know P. reticulatus is one of the largest snake species in the world. Females can reach more than 20 feet in length with some approaching 25 feet. There have been anecdotal accounts of some growing to more than 30 feet in length, but these stories have never been verified. The most recent claim was a python captured in Indonesia that was claimed to be 49 feet and approximately 983 lbs, but when officials went to verify it, it apparently "shrunk" and was recorded at approximately 21 feet and roughly 220 lbs. This snake was affectionately named Fragrant Flower.

To date the world's longest recorded snake was a snake measured in Celebes, Indonesia in 1912, and was 32 ft 9.5 in long. More recently the Pittsburgh Zoo had a reticulated python named "Colossus" that they had for 11 years (1951-1962) and was claimed to be 28.5 feet, but after it died it was officially measured at 20 ft 10 in. More recently, Fluffy from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Columbus Ohio was verified as the world's largest snake until it passed away in 2009 at a length of just over 24 feet. The frequency of snakes over 25 feet is so low that the Reptile Gardens in South Dakota (and possibly the New York Zoological Society, but that could have expired) have outstanding warrants for pythons and anacondas over 30 feet that have never been claimed since they've been posted. Giant Snakes | Biggest Crocodile on Earth | Reward (http://www.reptilegardens.com/reptiles/rewards.php)

There are currently 2 currently recognized "official" dwarf subspecies, they are P.r. jampeanus and P.r.saputrai. In addition to these two, there are 6 others that were described in 2004, they are listed as Broghammerus reticulatus but not as Python reticulatus and have not found general acceptance. The subspecies are dalegibbonsi, euanedwardsi, haydnmacphiei, neilsonnemani, patrickcouperi, and stuartbigmorei. I'm only going to discuss the first two, jampeanus and saputrai as there isn't much information available for the other 6.

P.r. jampeanus is officially listed as the smaller of the two subspecies and is the official "superdwarf". However the Kayuadi locality is the known superdwarf, with females (the larger sex) typically attaining less than 8 feet in length. The Jampea (Jamp) locality typically maxes out around 14 feet, however powerfed females have reached 18 feet.

The other subspecies is P.r.saputrai. This is the Selayer locality that is sometimes listed or referred to as "Slayer" retics. They are similar in size to the Jampea locality retics typically maxing out around 14 feet.

Another locality that has been gaining some popularity is the Sulawesi locality. This is NOT a dwarf retic, Sulawesis typically grow larger than your average mainland/normal retic. In addition there are several other localities out floating around with different coloration patterning.



The Burmese python has, until recently, been listed as a subspecies of the Indian python. It was classified as Python molurus bivittatus, the Indian rock python being Python molurus molurus. However during a study in 2009 focusing on the taxonomy of bivittatus, Jacobs, Auliya and Böhme concluded that it was a distinctly different species from molurus and reclassified it as such. The Indian rock python is still classified as P.m.molurus and the Burmese python is now classified as Python bivitattus.

During the same study they also concluded that the Sulawesi locality Burmese python was a dwarf form. They classified the Sulawesi locality as Python bivittatus progschai. Auliya, one of the contributing scientists to this study, was also one of the contributing scientists of the study that has the P.reticulatus listed as B.reticulatus.

Sources/further reading.
Giant Constricting Snakes, Broghammerus reticulatus (http://www.giantconstrictingsnakes.com/Reticulatus.html)
Giant Constricting Snakes, Python bivittatus (http://www.giantconstrictingsnakes.com/bivittatus.html)
Python bivittatus | The Reptile Database (http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Python&species=bivittatus&search_param=%28%28taxon%3D%27Pythonidae%27%29%29)
Broghammerus reticulatus | The Reptile Database (http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Broghammerus&species=reticulatus&search_param=%28%28taxon%3D%27Pythonidae%27%29%29)
GRATHWOHL HERPETOLOGY: Python molurus split and new subspecies (http://jangrathwohl.blogspot.com/2009/11/python-molurus-split-and-new-subspecies.html)
Longest Living Snake Passes Away - Guinness World Records Blog post - Home of the Longest, Shortest, Fastest, Tallest facts and feats (http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Longest-Living-Snake-Passes-Away/blog/2868289/7691.html)
snopes.com: Big Snake (http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/bigsnake.asp)
Python reticulatus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_reticulatus)

[millertime89]

minor rant: I had this all typed out before, and went to hit submit and my permissions or something had expired, clicked back, and everything I had typed out disappeared.

[BurmeseGuy]

Good read Kyle thanks man...gonna put up some pics of the enclosure soon

[millertime89]

good deal.

[Caylan]

Excellent read, must have been terrible to have to write out twice. I love reading about different localities and their actual countries of origin and trying to learn the latin names at the same time. I seek more now then the general care knowlege of snakes, as that i feel I have pretty much down pat for what I feel like keeping. But to know that much more about them like you do would be my ultimate goal in life I think. Where would you recommend I read more indepth articles like the one above that you wrote, and the ones you are stating that you must have read. I really don't know where to find those types of documents, or how to obtain them if thats what it takes. I realize there must be countless books, I've read VPI's Pythons of the world, Greg Maxwells the more complete chondro, and kevin murphy's Ball python book as well. But these are more common types of python, I am more interested in the indonesian species like the leiopython, the scrub python, bloods and burmese pythons, but haven't really been able to find anything about them in the wild really, Let alone as detailed as what you're reading. Thanks very much for sharing, again I really enjoyed it. Caylan.S.

[millertime89]

Writing it twice sucked, especially since I feel my first attempt was better and had some more details that I feel like I probably left out on my second try. All of that info has been learned from the above articles, as well as a few others, and from conversations with experienced breeders/keepers. I'm very good at locating articles with the info I'm looking for once I've been giving a solid starting point. I actually have not read many books, but the large python ban legislation made me want to dig deeper into the taxonomy of the snakes I enjoy.
Knowing specific scientific names of species is generally a really good start. Shaun on here has some fantastic links to morelia specific (and primarily Australian) forums for snakes originating from that area.
I know a decent bit about scrubs and burms (scrubs being another of my favorites) and am looking to learn more about white lips (leiopythons) as well as morelia in general. What are you looking for specifically? I'll try and stick to Scrubs and burms in this thread as they're more suited to this discussion.

[millertime89]

here's a pdf with tons of great info
http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/1436.pdf
here's a summary in english.
Summary
On the Taxonomy of the Burmese Python, Python molurus
bivittatus KUHL, 1820, specifically on the Sulawesi Population
The Indian python, Python m. molurus (Linnaeus, 1758) and
the Burmese Python, P. m. bivittatus Kuhl, 1820 are constantly
distinguished by two morphological characters, viz. “supralabials
touching eye” versus “complete circumocular ring” and “lanceolate
dorsal head pattern indistinct in front of eyes” versus “lanceolate
dorsal pattern distinct to tip of snout”. Despite their subspecific
status (which requires allopatry or parapatry at least), the
latter co-occur as several relict populations within the distribution
range of the former (viz. at some sites in North India along the
Nepalese border, and in East India in the Bengal region: Barker
& Barker 2008), and, despite their close relationship and their
ability to crossbreed in captivity (O’Shea 2007), both maintain
their phenotypic identities without interbreeding in nature. This
argues strongly for selective pressures against hybridization, which
is what we regard as typical for incipient speciation. We therefore
once more raise the Burmese Python to specific rank.
Python bivittatus occupies a large distribution area, ranging from
Bangladesh and Myanmar through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos,
and southern China including Hainan Island, to Vietnam. Peninsular
Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra are largely free of P. bivittatus,
with this area being occupied by the three species of the P.
curtus complex. Whether the absence of the former is influenced by the presence of the latter is difficult to say, and to-date, there is
no plausible hypothesis to explain this strikingly allopatric pattern
between the two species. However, P. bivittatus is found again on
some Sunda Islands, viz. Java and its offshore island Nusa Baring,
Bali and Sumbawa, perhaps also Lombok. While it would appear
clear that the occurrence on Java and Bali is authochthonous, it has
still to be demonstrated whether records from Sumbawa (Mertens
1930; M. Auliya, unpubl. data) might be due to human transportation,
because Sumbawa and Lombok are situated east of Wallace’s
line. The designation of the type locality “Java” by Mertens (1930)
is invalid due to the Code (ICZN 1999) because it was fixed without
designating a neotype. We stress that in view of the taxonomic
problems of this giant snake; designation of a neotype is indispensible
and will be addressed in the course of our ongoing research.
However, the records from Sulawesi, known as long ago as in
the 1890’s and being restricted only to the southwestern tip of
this island, refer to a distinct dwarf form of P. bivittatus which
is described here as a new subspecies: Python bivittatus progschai
ssp. n. It is clearly referable to P. bivittatus (rather than to P.
molurus) by constantly having a complete circumocular ring (the
supralabials thus being separated from the lower orbit) and a lanceolate,
dark dorsal head pattern, which remains distinct to the
tip of snout. But while P. b. bivittatus on the mainland and on
Java and Bali is an extremely large-growing and heavy snake (belongig
to the so-called “big four”), specimens from Sulawesi represent
a dwarf form not exceeding 2.40 m in total length. Related
to this minor size is that the number of eggs per clutch is only
about one third or less and the hatchling size only about 50% of
those known from P. b. bivttatus. We regard these natural history
data also as diagnostic for P. b. progschai ssp. n. Moreover, we
discuss some differences in colour pattern which have, however,
still to be verified on the basis of more specimens with reliable
locality data. Molecular data will finally reveal the degree of its
genetic distinctness in our ongoing studies of these pythons.
Finally, the distinct, endemic form of Python bivittatus in
SW Sulawesi also poses a conservation problem, and surveys of
its population status should be given high priority.

[millertime89]

The study with the first claim for the seperate subspecies that are not yet officially recognized starts on page 9 if you print to a pdf document, otherwise its about 1/4 of the way down.
Python taxonomy (Worldwide), including new taxa described and formally named. (http://www.smuggled.com/pytrev2.htm)
I can upload a PDF if people are interested.
The Auliya study I'm still struggling to find for free, I've found excerpts and a place I can pay for it, but not much more. Sometimes being in college has its perks.

[millertime89]

Credit to the translation summary goes to joe23 on BLBC.

Maybe I should've gone into something science-y...

[AaronRiot]

Thanks for the write up, very well done and informative.

Appearance-wise how would one spot a Jamp or Selayer? I've been considering a male. It's hard though because there's a huge risk involved because a mainland is out of my size range, especially if it grew to the 20 mark..

[Jenn_06]

Thank you, that was a really good read.

[millertime89]

Thanks for the write up, very well done and informative.

Appearance-wise how would one spot a Jamp or Selayer? I've been considering a male. It's hard though because there's a huge risk involved because a mainland is out of my size range, especially if it grew to the 20 mark..

Pattern and coloration differences primarily. Jamps seem to have a lot mor silver on their sides than normals. But even then it can be difficult. Your best bet is to find a breeder that has a good reputation and you trust. I'm lucky I've got one less than 2 hours away.

[Norm66]

Pattern and coloration differences primarily. Jamps seem to have a lot mor silver on their sides than normals. But even then it can be difficult. Your best bet is to find a breeder that has a good reputation and you trust. I'm lucky I've got one less than 2 hours away.

Thanks for the great writeup. Very interesting stuff.

Could you PM me a link to your breeder's site assuming he has one? A male SD is very interesting to me and I would only buy from someone I trusted and since you already trust this guy....

[a153fish]

This was very interesting and well written. I am not a Python guy, and very skeptical by nature. I wonder if anyone has kept any dwarfs, and fed them hardily, and do they retain there smaller size? I remember my father-in-law got some pot belly pigs which are suppossed to stay small. Well, he wasn't told they have a strict diet you have to keep them on, lol. Those things became pretty big. Maybe not as big as a normal pig, but they sure were larger than any of us thought they could get. Just curious about the whole ideah of dwarf pythons.

[millertime89]

This was very interesting and well written. I am not a Python guy, and very skeptical by nature. I wonder if anyone has kept any dwarfs, and fed them hardily, and do they retain there smaller size? I remember my father-in-law got some pot belly pigs which are suppossed to stay small. Well, he wasn't told they have a strict diet you have to keep them on, lol. Those things became pretty big. Maybe not as big as a normal pig, but they sure were larger than any of us thought they could get. Just curious about the whole ideah of dwarf pythons.

Thank you. I'm not sure about dwarf burms, however there are several instances of dwarf and superdwarf retics being powerfed to test their size potential. A female dwarf jamp that was powerfed beyond what is typically seen managed to hit 18 feet. Which may seem big until you stop and consider a normal female when powerfed will easily break 20. There is one account of a male sd retic that reached 11 feet, however I have a suspicion he was actually a jamp passed off as an sd. Otherwise I've read accounts of female 100% sd's hitting 10 when powerfed.

These accounts are based off of memory, however I'm sure if you wanted sources I could find them. The 18ft jamp and 11ftI SD will be easiest as I know exactly where I saw them.

[millertime89]

Ok, time to bump this up I realized some of my above info was wrong and I'll be correcting that in my next post. I'm talking with Travis Kubes and Mike Chambers about retic localities with a focus on Superdwarfs, but I'll talk about Jampeas, Selayers, and others as well. I'll make a separate post about WHY they can't reach 30 feet, let alone 50 feet as well.

[limey]

Good stuff.

Could somebody list all the different names of the subspecies of reticulated python for me? I'm interested in reading up on each individiual one.

[millertime89]

The only "official" ones are B. reticulatus jampeanus and B. reticulatus saputrai, and if you could find translations of those studies I know I would be greatful. The others are.
Broghammerus reticulatus dalegibbonsi
Broghammerus reticulatus euanedwardsi
Broghammerus reticulatus haydnmacphiei
Broghammerus reticulatus neilsonnemani
Broghammerus reticulatus patrickcouperi
Broghammerus reticulatus stuartbigmorei
They were described in a study by Hoser in 2004.

[MDT]

What's the status of Hoser's work within the taxonomic community? I ask only because of concerns brought up on other boards about lack of peer review in his journal.

[millertime89]

What's the status of Hoser's work within the taxonomic community? I ask only because of concerns brought up on other boards about lack of peer review in his journal.

That's just it, lack of peer review. That's about all I know. For a document to be generally accepted there's supposed to be a peer review process which his sometimes don't go through is all I've really heard on the topic. Mind PMing me a link to that discussion? I would like to read up on it. I heard this first from my professor last spring.

[snakemanaust]

Dear all, I saw a link here for an earlier paper of mine on the pythons and their taxonomy.
There continue to be a lot of studies on the pythons and while each big paper of mine seeks to be the "final word" more information (and taxa) emerge needing formal naming and the like.
The most current accurate treatment is in issue 10 or 11 of Australasian Journal of Herpetology, and of interest to many is the formal description of the Bar-necked Scrub Python (A. funki).
I posted elsewhere on this forum a marked up phylogeny of Rawlings et. al. 2008 which effectively validates all genera formally named by Wells and Wellington and myself over the past 30 years.
All the best

[millertime89]

Dear all, I saw a link here for an earlier paper of mine on the pythons and their taxonomy.

Who are you?

There continue to be a lot of studies on the pythons and while each big paper of mine seeks to be the "final word" more information (and taxa) emerge needing formal naming and the like.

Care to elaborate which ones? I would be very grateful.

The most current accurate treatment is in issue 10 or 11 of Australasian Journal of Herpetology, and of interest to many is the formal description of the Bar-necked Scrub Python (A. funki).

Got a link? I would love to read it.

I posted elsewhere on this forum a marked up phylogeny of Rawlings et. al. 2008 which effectively validates all genera formally named by Wells and Wellington and myself over the past 30 years.


You did? I don't see it, you've got 2 posts, and the other is about cake.

[MDT]

Who are you?

Gotta be Hoser

[StudentoReptile]

My BS radar is tingling.

[snakemanaust]

"Gotta be Hoser"
Thanks for stating the obvious.
Now the Rawlings Phylogeny marked up is also on the webpage at:
Reticulated Python, world's longest snake. (http://www.smuggled.com/BroRet1.htm)
All the best

[rmfsnakes32]

Very good read I will be getting a baby burm in a few weeks after 3 years of research and debating with myself that I really want a burm they are beautiful creatures! I am sticking with a male since they do stay considerably smaller than the females do plus I have no intention of breeding as there are to many unwanted burms due to the bans put in place in so many states

[millertime89]

Thanks Ray! (can I call you Ray?) That's great info, really appreciate it.

[lemon]

Fluffy was only 20ft 1inch and not 24foot.

Here's the footage of her being measured :)

fluffy measurement - snakezilla - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=53bZE50TuBc)

[MDT]

My BS radar is tingling.



As well it should....

[snakemanaust]

The pdf of the most recent python paper with the description of the
bar necked scrubbie is at:

http://www.smuggled.com/AJHI10.pdf

All the best