Re: Are you sure about the sexes?

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Posted by Tenaka on April 08, 2003 at 12:55:59:

In Reply to: Are you sure about the sexes? posted by chrish on April 08, 2003 at 00:47:23:

thanks chrish for the info

Lol I did used to be pretty afraid that I had my sexes wrong but the big guys tail is around 5 inches long and theres no dip behind the vent, but the female when I got her fixed those fears because her tail is a tiny litttle stub relative to the big guys hers is around 2 inches long, I suppose its always possible that I have the sex wrong still, but if the tail comparison is pretty near foolproof then a tail length of 20% or so of body length should be pretty conclusive.

I was just wondering if the female would have a final growth spurt in her third year or maybe later in this one seems she still has a bit of growing to do :)and also wondering if theres anybody who like me bought an adult male from a petshop and had him grow fifty percent larger.
I had a look through the forum archives but didnt see anything and decided to ask, I am hoping to breed eventually and the big guys just adorable not as feisty as the female I got as a neonate but a lot more timid.

danny

:I've never heard of a 27 inch male nasicus, but I guess that could be possible. Female regularly get over this size, males rarely do, in my experience.

:Platt found that males (in the wild) were around 4 years of age were around 20 inches long at best (and growing 7 mm month). That would put a 5 year old male at around 23 inches. It would probably take another 2-3 years to reach 27 inches, if it ever did.

:Also, the growth spurt of your snake also is more typical of a female reaching sexual maturity. Males tend to grow at a slower more continual rate. Here is some data for my hogs. They were wild caught as one or two year olds. Notice they stayed about the same size for the first year or so, then the female took off (the top, black line is the female, the bottom gray line the male). This is fairly typical, in my experience.

:As to your 21 month old, 18" snake, this also sounds more like a female to me. Check their tails, their should be an obvious difference in tail length. An 18 inch male would have a tail that would be as long as or longer than a 27 inch female. A 27 inch male's tail would probably be twice the length of an 18 inch female's tail.

:A more useful thing to measure would be the tail:total length ratio. For comparison, here are some comparisons in my snakes -
:25 inch female (250 g) - 2.5 inch tail (tail = 10% total length)
:18 inch male (90 g) - 3.5 inch tail (tail = 19% total length)
:12 inch male (26 g) - 2.5 inch tail (tail = 20% total length)

:So my males' tails (sorry!) are twice as long (relative to body length) as the female's.

Follow Ups:

Re: Are you sure about the sexes? chrish 04/08/03 (2)
- Re: Are you sure about the sexes? Tenaka 04/08/03 (1)
  - good bit of news for my hog pair cpn_aaron 04/09/03 (0)