Twins

Scales Zoo · 06-22-04, 08:29 AM

I will find a way to get a picture, damn the kids who stole my camera, damn them all to hell!

On Sunday, our albino het for patternless burmese pythons started hatching from their eggs.

One of the little guys had his head poking out of the egg, but there looked like there were bubbles still being created from inside the egg. At that time I mentioned the possibility of twins.

Today, we found 2 heads poking out of the egg. We seperated that egg and gave it it's own rubbermade,so when they emerge we know which 2 the twins are.

To confirm that it is twins, and that one hatched snake didn't crawl into anothers egg, I will have to wait till all those are done hatching and count the empty eggs vs the baby snakes, but I'm pretty sure we got twins!

Elvira (the mom) is a sister to the triplets. I will try phoning Vern today, but I do beleive he has had twins before from eggs Ally (Elvira and Triplets mother) laid.

How common is twins with burms? I'm just wondering if Elvira could be genetically predisposed to having twins in an egg.

I wasnt' planning on keeping 2 babies, but I'd kind of like to keep the twins. Of course, if there is anyone who wants to trade their digital camera for twin albino burmese pythons, email me - I really miss having a dig cam. Canon S1's or G5's accepted.

Ryan

Scales Zoo · 06-22-04, 11:49 AM

I snapped some pictures of the twins with the video camera.

This is the egg with the twins, you can see the 2 heads and 2 tails, I will try to get better ones later.

They also appear smaller than the others.

I'll try and get better pictures of them later.

I did talk to Vern, and he confirmed that Ally(mom to Elvira and to Triplets) had and egg with twins from a different male (than the one that fathered the triplets) the year before Elvira was hatched.

And I also think I saw another egg with a head poking out, bubbling as if there was a twin in that one too. I will keep my eye on that egg.

I hope the twins are females, I'll breed them to one of the triplets (all males) in the future.

Ryan

JD@reptiles · 06-22-04, 12:23 PM

congrats!

BOAS_N_PYTHONS · 06-22-04, 12:57 PM

RYAN / SHEILA:

Congrats on the new additions.
Very nice update on them indeed.

Keep us posted.

Cya...

Tony

Stav.T · 06-22-04, 01:39 PM

Congrats Ryan!

Stav

Invictus · 06-23-04, 12:36 AM

Right on!!! Congrats guys.

Jungle Jen · 06-23-04, 01:10 AM

Thats really neat guys! Congrats, and keep us updated on the twins and the other mystery egg!

AlexPan · 06-23-04, 01:37 AM

Congrats Ryan and Sheila!

lakeridgekennel · 06-23-04, 01:08 PM

Congrats!!!!!!
I can't wait to get mine!

Sean

python_diva_06 · 06-23-04, 01:16 PM

awesome awesome awesome stuff! congrats!!!

marisa · 06-23-04, 01:17 PM

On queensnake they had a debate over two snakes in one egg. Generally it turned out that it is not true twins. Actually I think this particular debate was about bearded dragons.....anyways.... A poster qouted out of the "The Reproductive Husbandry of Pythons and Boas" with this paragraph:

"Since snakes generally give birth to multiple offspring from multiple ova, all littermates, whether from viviparious or oviparous snakes, are probably non-identical twins(or triplets, quadruplets, etc). In vitellogenic oviparous snakes (snakes that lay yolked eggs) such as pythons, the yolk does not divide during cell replication. Instead, the embryo develops on top of the yolk. Therefore, the occurrence of two embryos in one egg must be caused by two separate embryos being '"accidentally'" shelled together during passage through the oviduct. They are not, therefore, true twins.
Since these '"twins"' are not true twins, this penomenon is a random event and not an inheritable trait. Furthermore, the number of young is unchanged, but the number of eggs is reduced by one."

The only reason I even remember this person posting this was because of your photo, and I had read the debate on queensnake with some interest as people gave really good info in it.

In either case, twins, faternal, identical, etc, those are mighty cute babies and you can't beat two for the price of one.

Marisa

Scales Zoo · 06-23-04, 02:13 PM

They are twins, but not identical twins, there is a difference.

A human can have twins that aren't identical, but they are still considered " twins" - you know....

The patterns are different between the 2 snakes, but they did come out of the same egg, which is cool.

Anyone ever heard the statistics involved with twins. Like is it 1/1000 eggs or less?

A lot of people I know have had it happen, it's not really rare - but it's neat - and it finally happened to us.

Ryan

marisa · 06-23-04, 02:21 PM

The paragraph I posted was more in relation to the idea it might be genetic. Accourding to that paragraph, it wouldn't be. But maybe not "egging" each embryo is.

Anyways must of this is much above my head still and I just wanted to throw that out there as I thought it was interesting.

Marisa

Linds · 06-23-04, 02:41 PM

Ryan,
Very neat and congrats on the clutch. How many were there in total?

Marisa,
Thanks for sharing that info!

Scales Zoo · 06-23-04, 02:54 PM

There were 40 eggs, 1 of which I beleive was infertile, and 3 of which I think got water drops on them and are no longer good.

24/25 that were on the bottom have pipped, 8 babies total (from 7 of those eggs) are now out, and the 15 eggs in the other egg box have yet to pip, infact they are just starting to dimple.

They seem to be quite a bit behind the first ones - and the temperature difference was very minor, except for the first 10 days, their was a 2 F difference.

I'm gonna split eggs up in the future - this is interesting.

Ryan