New Jaguar Carpet! - Page 2

giambi4343 · 01-28-11, 12:56 PM

i just took more pictures about ten minutes ago! when i opened the cage, he was hissing a little but no striking or anything like that. after i pickep him up with snake tongs, he was fine out of the cage. i couldnt believe how strong this little guy was. he wrapped around my middle and ring finger and was turning them purple! he loves the camera. he was holding perfectly still when i needed him to

also, he kept reaching for the camera when i would put it close to him. actually really funny. i am begining to trush him a little more each time i hold him. i was bit once by an adult carpet and was probably the worst bite ive ever gotten.... so that is always in the back of my head. i dont show fear towards him, because i know snakes can feel fear. anyway, here are some pictures ive taken

enjoy!!!

with flash

giambi4343 · 01-28-11, 12:57 PM

with flash. looks like hes coming out/going into the shaddows

this is a picture of him squeezing the hell out of my fingers. you can see them purple!

with flash

Will0W783 · 01-28-11, 01:10 PM

Wow, he has got a seriously cool pattern...I can see why he could be mistaken for a jaguar. The head pattern doesn't fit though, but he definitely has something interesting going on with his pattern. It will be cool to see if it proves out genetic or adds some abberancy to jaguar babies.

giambi4343 · 01-28-11, 01:20 PM

when you say the head pattern doesnt fit, what do you mean? you make a good point about what he can produce. thats why im so anxious to breed him

Will0W783 · 01-28-11, 03:19 PM

The head pattern is too dark and thick, and the lines all connect. This is rare in jaguars, which usually have reduced patterning all over the body, including the head. Since there is so much variation among carpet python head patterns though, one has to consider several factors when judging what is a jaguar and what is not. The eye color (jaguars have striking light silver, sometimes almost white eyes while regular carpets have darker pewter to charcoal eyes), the head pattern should be choppy and reduced and abberant (some look like demons, or skulls, or flowers or TVs, or letters), the side patterns should be rounded and look almost like bubbles coming up from the stomach and should not connect at the back (normal carpet pythons have dorsal patterning and the side patterns connect while a jag's back is almost always the base color with no pattern), the overall pattern should be reduced and well spaced, and genetics (you cannot produce a jaguar if neither parent was jaguar). Jaguar is a co-dominant (aka incomplete dominant) morph- meaning that 1 copy of the gene will look different from normal but 2 copies will also look different from 1 copy. In this case, a single copy of the gene gives a visible jaguar, and 2 copies of the gene is always lethal but would produce a leucistic animal. The longest a leucy carpet survived, to my knowledge, is 12 hours after hatching. Most die in the egg and never hatch. No one is sure why the condition is lethal in carpets but not other pythons like balls and Burmese. The siblings in a jaguar clutch are called "jag siblings" but do not carry the jaguar gene at all. However, they tend to be a bit more abberant in pattern than pure locality carpets that have no jaguar in their bloodlines and can be really neat snakes. Once you've seen enough jaguars, the morph becomes very easy to distinguish at a single glance. Here are some links to good pictures of nice clean jaguars and explanations of the morph:
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/am...background.jpg
Anthony Caponetto Reptiles - Jaguar Carpet Pythons
Propagating Carpet Pythons
http://www.reptilechannel.com/images...rpet-pytho.jpg

Also keep in mind that most jaguar carpets are not locality pure. The jaguar gene exists only in coastal carpet python subspecies. However, coastal jags are usually cream background with brown patterning, and people have bred coastal jaguars with pure jungle carpets or with IJs to create the more colorful jaguars. The siblings are all "mutts" as they have no pure bloodline anymore. However, they are still cool snakes. I will have to get you some pictures of High Voltage- who is one of the brightest carpets I've seen in a long time. His brother, Jigsaw, is a very famous jaguar who is producing some of the neatest abberant jags (dont' look like normal jags at all- very choppy) and is himself very unusually patterned. Here is a link to a picture of Jigsaw (owned and produced by my good friend Mike Curtin in NJ):
Jaguar Carpets :: Jigsaw 1 picture by curtinherps - Photobucket