Miracle of the day!
A baby snake is born!
This is the fist newborn snake I've ever seen. About two years ago, I got a pair of Irian Jaya/West Papuan Carpet Pythons (Morelia Spilota Variegata). They were babies back then, but now they're grown up, at least the female. This female is mother to this little baby, but the male of this pair is not the father. The father is instead another, larger, type of Carpet Python, a one called Coastal Carpet Python (Morelia Spilota McDowelli). This male is not regular Coastal Carpet either - he's got a special color and pattern, which is a genetic mutation. Just this color mutation, morph, the father has got is called Jaguar.
Accordingly, this baby is a cross between two different subspecies of Carpet Python. The chance was 50% that the offspring would inherit the father's special color. This year the female only laid one healty egg, which is understandable considering this was the first time in her life that she laid eggs. In the end, we didn't even think that this egg would hatch because it seemed to dry out more and more with time. So my hopes were not too high. But on the exact day that we had calculated, the egg hatched and out came a perfectly healthy little baby - with the color mutation from the father!
It will be really interesting to see this little guy (or girl) grow up. Baby snakes are growing fast and these kind of snakes are going through drastical changes in color which are really, really fun to follow.
I will update with more photos as time goes by and the little one developes.
This is the mother, a two year old Irian Jaya/West Papuan Carpet Python, normal color
This is the (mighty) father, a really big Coastal Carpet Python, Jaguar type
This is the fist newborn snake I've ever seen. About two years ago, I got a pair of Irian Jaya/West Papuan Carpet Pythons (Morelia Spilota Variegata). They were babies back then, but now they're grown up, at least the female. This female is mother to this little baby, but the male of this pair is not the father. The father is instead another, larger, type of Carpet Python, a one called Coastal Carpet Python (Morelia Spilota McDowelli). This male is not regular Coastal Carpet either - he's got a special color and pattern, which is a genetic mutation. Just this color mutation, morph, the father has got is called Jaguar.
Accordingly, this baby is a cross between two different subspecies of Carpet Python. The chance was 50% that the offspring would inherit the father's special color. This year the female only laid one healty egg, which is understandable considering this was the first time in her life that she laid eggs. In the end, we didn't even think that this egg would hatch because it seemed to dry out more and more with time. So my hopes were not too high. But on the exact day that we had calculated, the egg hatched and out came a perfectly healthy little baby - with the color mutation from the father!
It will be really interesting to see this little guy (or girl) grow up. Baby snakes are growing fast and these kind of snakes are going through drastical changes in color which are really, really fun to follow.
I will update with more photos as time goes by and the little one developes.
This is the mother, a two year old Irian Jaya/West Papuan Carpet Python, normal color
This is the (mighty) father, a really big Coastal Carpet Python, Jaguar type
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