#short-tailed python

[teleos]

i have never in my life been able to get my eye makeup this good. also i don't wear eye makeup but still

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Is it true that short-tailed pythons pee a lot? I'm considering one but I want to know how much mess to prepare for lol.

Let me put it this way: my Borneo python Hobie still has a lot of growing to do, and the last time he peed, it raised the overall humidity in his enclosure by a full 3%. They also do tend to pee frequently by snake standards, but it's usually smaller pees more frequently so it's not always such a big mess.

Short-tailed pythons are awesome (and I can't recommend them enough for any intermediate-advanced level keeper, they're some of my absolute favorite snakes), but when they pass waste it can be an event. Half the time when they poop you wind up needing to deep-clean the enclosure and give the snake a bath, and one time my old blood Frankie passed a urate so big I thought it was a regurged rodent at first.

It can be such a thing with them because they tend to hold waste for a long time, even by snake standards. The good news is that, with a full-grown short-tail, you might have to deal with it three times a year. The bad news is that you will have to deal with it three times a year.

[fucxingcuties]

Sumatran Short Tail Python (Python curtus), Aceh Province variety, family Pythonidae, from Sumatra, Indonesia

photograph by AC Exotics

[herpsandbirds]

Brongersma's Short-tailed Python aka Blood Python (Python brongersmai), family Pythonidae, Narathiwat, Thailand

photograph by David Frohlich

[dilly-monster]

I moved last week and everyone had a terrible time lmao

[speaking-impartially]

Do you let your snakes interact with each other?

Nope! While there are a few species that are social (garter snakes are probably the most well known example), most species are solitary and will actually attack and eat other snakes, so they all have their own enclosures and only get taken out one at a time.

My corn snake is nosy so she’s seen the others from inside her enclosure when I have them out for handling, but that’s as close as she will ever come to interacting with them.

[stay-wild-smol-child]

Just a couple blue boys today

[lexotics]

This is the first short tailed python I've worked with, and I absolutely love their big personalities. Dolores is supposedly a bit "spicy" but I had no issues handling her or getting her out of her enclosure. She huffed a bit and was quite tense if you tried to pet her but otherwise was quite docile. Definitely not comfortable handing her to children just yet but she's an absolute dream 😍

[peachcandraw]

almostt... hhhnngghhhhh..

[hound-bound]

Had this handsome guy out tonight, my new addition, Bakar. So far the temperament on this boy has been 👌

[teleos]

phlllbbbbbtt

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Are there any species of snake that look fat but are actually healthy? Especially any that are safe for home keepers? I know the Gaboon viper matches the body plan I'm talking about, but I'm curious if there are any others or anything I could try keeping without being unethically stupid.

Yes! That body plan is associated with snakes that are highly specialized ambush predators and stay still most of the time (as you mention, Gaboon vipers are a great example!).

But, for pets, short-tailed pythons fit the bill, and they're even some of my favorite pet snakes in the world! (check out my "Hobie" tag to see my Borneo short-tailed python Hobie, who I love more than words can say.)

Short-tailed pythons are best for experienced keepers, because they are finnicky and they don't tolerate husbandry mistakes well. They like very narrow husbandry ranges; you shouldn't let their hot side temps get over 82 F and they need humidity in the 60-70% range. They can be defensive and snappy if handled improperly, but it's my experience that even poorly socialized short-tails, when given proper husbandry, are absolute delights to work with! They're endearingly chatty and will often make little hissy huffing noises if they don't like how you're holding them.

They're just delightful. They get about as long as ball pythons but much heavier, and they're definitely a snake you need to hold with both hands but that's just more room to love! Because they're so specialized for ambush predation, their body language is a bit different (they're very still and can move quickly and suddenly), but you get to know them with practice. They're snakes you can just hang out with.

[herpsandbirds]

Brongersma's Short-tailed Python (Python brongersmai), family Pythonidae, Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand

photograph by Rushenb

[fimbry]

This is going to be a long post, a mix of what happened and then what Charlie meant to me. TW pet death

Charlie has passed away after eating 2 bad rats from Big Cheese Rodent Factory. She regurgitated 3 days after feeding and died two days later. I have been purchasing f/t rats from Big Cheese for years, and if my friend hadn't been having these same problems with the same batch of jumbo rats I would have thought this could be a freak incident or a mistake on my part. However, my friend's snakes are also regurgitating and one has died after eating these jumbo rats, and we bought them during the same Mother's Day sale. Same batch. I'll be getting a necropsy on Charlie to see if that has any answers as to what was off with the rats.

Now I get it that sometimes food safety measures don't get carried out every time and most suppliers have some kind of scandal like this, but the company's callous response and refusal to even entertain that it could be their rats at fault is pretty fucked up and has me a bit heated. It's just a "coincidence" my friend's and my snakes are getting sick/dying after eating rats from the same batch. Eye roll. The money doesn't even matter to me at this point so I may not message them further about this, I'm just so upset over the cold response and the loss of Charlie.

The email response from them:

With that out of the way, I do want to share what Charlie meant to me. She was a very special animal, I thought of her as the "matriarch" of my collection as I have a good number of her kids and grandchildren still with me. Four of each actually if I'm counting, and I love them so very much.

When I got Charlie I was still pretty green in the hobby. Yes I'd had snakes for years, my cornsnake and then a couple ball pythons, and even a Sumatran short-tail, my beloved Svid, but these were all very "easy" snakes... I learned with them, but I was not challenged the way that Charlie challenged me. I got Charlie as a full adult, she was my first blood python and I had not even planned to get into bloods until I saw her. I was planning to focus on Sumatran short tails, but Charlie changed things.

Charlie came out of the shipping bag striking and bit me on the finger immediately. Now I'm not sure if anyone remembers this but that video of the two little brothers "Charlie bit my finger" is how Charlie got her name lol.

The first 4 months were... challenging. I could not even touch her directly. I was so afraid I'd made a mistake. Charlie was a 17lb adult blood python, far bigger than my other snakes, and she was TERRIFIED of me. She wanted me to go to hell, and would send me there herself if only she could. We spent a lot of time together, just me sitting near her open enclosure and her glaring at me. Over the months we went from no contact, to minimal contact, until finally I was able to at least clean her without too much trouble. She liked routine, liked to know what was going to happen next. Any deviation from the routine and the trust would be broken, she'd be full of fear again. It was a few years of doing things purely by her strict rules.

Around 2014, something clicked. She began to actually trust that I wasn't going to hurt her and didn't have bad intentions. We seemed to have an actual understanding where if something happened out of the norm, she wouldn't react badly. I could even take her out for pictures and she behaved! Soon I was able to pet her, touch her tail (which I was doing a lot about now since I was trying to figure out why my "male" was not breeding, ha), even pet her head. I was still a bit wary of her, but we were in a good place. As the years went on, our trust grew deeper and I knew she wouldn't bite me, and she knew I was a safe person.

She also showed me how intelligent these snakes could be. She could tell people apart which became obvious if she saw anyone besides me. While I had earned her trust, others had not, so I refrained from taking her out if others were around. While she was a big beautiful animal, I couldn't take her out to show guests. I respected her all the more for it, if I'm honest. She knew what she was about, and I didn't push that.

Over the years she ended up giving me three clutches of beautiful babies, she did such a good job. After her last clutch in 2021, she started showing her age. She was nearing 20 years old, if not over, and had begun getting wrinkled scales and grew a cataract in one eye. I decided to retire her from breeding and let her enjoy her golden years in peace. Pythons can live a very long time, so I expected to have another ~10 years with her.

I'm devastated that her retirement was cut short like this, devastated that I was robbed of more time together. We had both grown and changed a lot over the last 12 years together, and she really was a picture of "to be loved is to be changed." My sweet old lady who knew me, and I knew her. ♥

[speaking-impartially]

in most of the photos I post of Ahab he’s curled up in my lap so his size and heft doesn’t really come across, but he is in reality an ABSOLUTE UNIT:

monster energy ultra sunrise for scale.

also, bonus blelele:

🥰🥰🥰

[tangledinink]

your art and design(s) of donnie has inspired me to give my donnie a long fluffy tail.

and like i headcanon donnie as trans, and i know that female turtles have little short tails but my excuse is that something just went a little weird with his mutation so he has a long tail. that also goes for the fluffy part of the tail, since turtles don't have fur whatsoever

sorry this was random I just wanted to say- also i LOVE YOUR ART!!! ITS SO PRETTY

hell yeah! long tail donnie supremacy!!! go off!!! chase your bliss!!! give him a long fluffy tail! my favorite way to 'justify' donnie's long tail (not that you need a justification) is a headcanon that I 1000% stole from @spectralsleuth that the mad dogz got more than just turtle/human DNA in there...

i mean, they're baron draxum's masterwork! unstoppable super soldiers! the answer to the prophecy! if you wanna make an incredible dish, you don't just use two ingredients, right? so i like to imagine it being, like, mostly turtle and lou jitsu dna, sure, but with, like... a dash of dna from a dozen or so other animals, too. just for good measure. you gotta season the dish, right?

it's fun because it just opens so many doors in my mind. oh, donnie's long tail? yeah, that's the water monitor dna. the way the gemini wag their tails? oh, there's some doberman in there. the sharp teeth? python genes making an appearance! they purr because of the trace amounts of wildcat heritage they have--