I am not normally into these colour variations and have repeatedly mentioned this but these are a favourite species of mine and particularly nice specimens.
Het Caramel Colour Variety of Reticulated Pythons - Python reticulatus.
Probably my dislike of these new colour varieties is fear of the idea that they will become like Domestic Dog breeds and become unrecognisable from their natural form.
In another way it is like putting to fingers up to nature and saying that it is incapable of true natural beauty and we can do better, lol.
Mad I know but just they way I see it in my mind's eye.
But it all does have a very, VERY positive side to it and due to this positive side I am not completely dismissive of this seemingly growing culture....
...an increase in popularity of this selective breeding and new colour varieties puts far less pressure on wild populations of animals normally raided too much just to be sold to idiots who cannot keep them properly in the first place, or do not think to ask how big they can get.
Like these for example that can grow large enough to devour a 10 to 14 year old boy and reports of these eating grown men in the wild are more than one or two.
Approaching a large adult above 20 feet of this variety in the wild would NOT be advisable even to those on TV claiming to be experts yet keep getting bitten, slashed, poisoned, gauged, sliced, whipped and any other manner to which nature can punish you?!
Spotting one above 25 feet and you may want to run...fast. Reports of them being above 35 feet are not that rare and this would eat a person up to and above to 5 ft 6 inches with relative ease.
No one has been able to get one above 30 feet in captivity despite the reward that exists, or at least did, of 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 as I cannot remember the exact figure.
There are two principles to giant snakes that no one seems to pick up on and first off is the one that any true hobbyist knows and that is freaks of nature, mutations in other words. These happen more often than you think.
There is also one other things required to obtain a true monster and claim that elusive prize in my opinion.
First off is prey sizes and in all honesty to achieve a big snake above 30 feet you HAVE to keep providing ever bigger prey sizes and once way oast rabbits you have to start thinking farm animals. Oh dear that could be expensive, lol.
Linked to the above is also EXERCISE and believe me anyone who keeps fish knows that it is often difficult to achieve maximum, or at least LISTED, sizes unless your aquarium is of a certain size relative to the species of fish.
At the other end of the scale to this the proverbial Goldfish in a Goldfish Bowl and I had a woman had a go at me once and said she would report me and my store because I refused to sell her a Goldfish and a bowl because she wanted to keep a child quiet and I said it was technically cruelty. "They do NOT grow to the size of the bowl Madam that is a myth. They just become more and more stunted and a Goldfish should get a foot long!" I then pointed out that she could be done for cruelty and technically I could report her to the RSPCA, morons that I think they are but more on that for another time.
Anyone who has a garden pond and has friends with garden ponds will also know that the bigger the pond the bigger their Goldfish and Koi Carp tend to get.
So prey sizes and EXERCISE and the two are intertwined as if you think of the effort that is put into wrestling a cow or other large animals you will realise that having even a dead cow presented to you on a .... pallet, lol, is not going to increase your muscles and therefore size.
Nope if you want to show to the world that either the Green Anaconda or this Reticulated Python CAN get over 30 feet there is only one way which as it turns it is not only a great deal cheaper but also far, far quicker....
Go to the Amazon Jungle or those dense Jungles out in Asia and bring one back! Hmm you MIGHT need a few mates?! LOL. A gun might be a good idea, just in case.
