big bloody retics

OMG that's both awe inducing and terrifying at the same time. Steve, some rather impressive pics of a beautiful powerhouse of a snake .

steve dawson wrote:thanx for the pleasant replies about my big retics cheers guys

Complete credit to you Steve...excellent animals...

Phil wrote:

steve dawson wrote:thanx for the pleasant replies about my big retics cheers guys

Your welcome Steve,thanx for letting me use your pics,awsome looking retics you have.I think the tigers are my favourite.Although some of the albinos ive seen(only in pictures) are hard to beat.Do you breed many retics/retic morphs? Do you work with dwarf or super dwarf lines?

no problem mate

Tanpira wrote:OMG that's both awe inducing and terrifying at the same time. Steve, some rather impressive pics of a beautiful powerhouse of a snake .

thanx glad you like them

Tony W wrote:

steve dawson wrote:thanx for the pleasant replies about my big retics cheers guys

Complete credit to you Steve...excellent animals...

thanx very much

Awesome

wow that cool good job man and good luck

scary

morelia wrote:Cracker thread - thanks for the info Lisa, thats great reading!

The same spam seems to permeat the Retic world as it does the world of carpet pythons - there is some absolute crap floating around out there, so much myth and so many lies. It takes personal research and attention to detail to tease out the rubbish from the gold-dust where correct information is concerned so its great to hear some of your findings Lisa.

Do keep us posted on your Retic article whenever its ready!

Thanks Karl
There is utter rubbish about. The principle prob with the word 'superdwarf' is that it just lacks precision. It doesn't tell us anything about origins/locality and is often used as a descriptive term. As a result it is used very loosely by some breeders and keepers, and it is very easy to be misled. It's a touchy subject, and i've been met with abuse from certain angles while trying to find out more....The more I learn, the more I realise how careful you need to be about buying what you want to ultimately be small retics.
article should be finished by now, but some breeders don't like to be questioned

the term superdwarf could be applied to any retic that is, well, superdwarfed. but is bob clarkes line an auctal locality? anyone sure on that yet?
ive said it before, i dont care, i have 6-7foot adult retics. thats all that counts in my book..................

trunx wrote:my two are touching seven foot. bob clarke line, not sure onage, we estimate 4 -5. hey have a typical retic tempemaent but not feeding response at all, they only feed overnight in the dark-weirdos..

if bob clarks line is a true locality retic and is known as 'super dwarf' (no definte locality is known) and the kayuda retic is a 'super' dwarf retic that is known as the kayuda retic, then it is misleading to call the morph 'suuper dwarfs', no? at best they can be a certain % super dwarf no matter how many generations down the line they are.............

I didn't want to say this at the time, as wanted to check over my notes and make sure I could back up what I was saying if necessary. Was also waiting for Bob to get back to me, but he's not as quick when he's not getting credit card details...Mike Wilbanks is a little better however!
Now, from what I can tell...it would be impossible for you to have a pair of CB superdwarfs from the Clark/Wilbanks line that are 4/5 yrs old. The original animals were imported in 99. In 06 there were still no SDxSD breedings from this line - Wilbanks claimed in an 06 interview that it was not his goal. "I am into the morphs and want smaller albinos, tigers, etc. we can import female SD's, so there is no need to make more - I want SD het albinos etc..."
So, the only CB SD's available at this time were direct mainland or dwarf crossings - that may have been labelled SD's, I don't know. (there were a very limited number of breedings from when the animals were imported in 99 to 2006). There were also quite a few WC SD's sold by Bob and Mike at this time and I have spoken with a few people who bought pairs. This, to me, would be a risk. How can you be sure of an animal's origin, unless you head over to Indonesia and pick them from a little island yourself? And monitor adults in the area?
For me, I have to know the age and size of the parents. I don't trust any breeder's word where dwarfs/superdwarfs are concerned.
Monster snakes have early SD's from bob's line and maintain (pretty adamently) that if your retic passes 6 ft, whatever it is fed, it is not a true superdwarf. (superdwarf referring only to the specific line imported by Bob and Mike in '99). This sounds a little extreme to me. We don't apply such length 'deadlines' to other localities - 'you're 14 ft, so you're not a jampea'. It's suggesting the term as descriptive, instead of referring to it as a locality, which is what bob emphasises.
The original animals are still under 6 ft today, and according to bob, so are all of his animals. I don't see how this is the case when so much locality crossing is going on. But 6/7/8 ft - it's tiny for a retic. As long as I have proof of that with the parents, then that's good enough for me. That's as much as I can hope for.
I think the origins of these animals will always be debatable - I have come across at least one situation where someone paid money for WC SD's from bob, and they turned out to be Kayaudi localities, according to those in the know.
I said earlier in the thread I trusted Bob's SD's. Now I say a breeder's name is not enough. I trust his recent CB lines, as I have done my research on the parentage. When we're talking about WC individuals, that's different.
I want to see parents!!!

trunx wrote:the term superdwarf could be applied to any retic that is, well, superdwarfed. but is bob clarkes line an auctal locality? anyone sure on that yet?
ive said it before, i dont care, i have 6-7foot adult retics. thats all that counts in my book..................

My thoughts exactly. For anyone who debates the existence of superdwarfs....just compare sizes here.
Bob's line is supposed to come from an unnamed island in the greater Sundas. Unnamed, because there are about 10,000 islands off Indonesia, many so small they don't have names - the original sD's were collected there in 1999 by bob and mike. Or so we're told.
Lots of breeders use SD as a descriptive term now - and that's why it's so problematic.

Excellent posts Lisa . Very informative.

Thanks Tan - I guess the sad point is that nothing should be taken at face value where small retics are concerned. Just do your research.
I have a honey island retic I could easily label as superdwarf if i wanted to - she is less than 5 ft at almost 5 yrs old. She is WC, came to me as an adult - so i can't be sure on her history. But snatching her from the wild and deciding she is a superdwarf would be misleading, as madu's are certainly capable of larger sizes than this.
Some of these WC superdwarfs of bob's will stay tiny. But what's to say they will all stay under 6ft? How can we know where exactly they come from? This is why I say if you want to have a good indicator of size, stick with CB - where parents can be seen.

Also, size really is relative. I was lucky enough to get one of Mike's holdback dwarf (not superdwarf) albino males. (they screwed up, I gained ) He's a stunning snake, who is Jampea based, but was selectively bred from small parents. this is the key, I believe. He's less than 6 ft at three yrs old, which is a little smaller than Trunx's superdwarf by sounds of it. He may be thicker - and he may grow a lot bigger in the long run, time will tell. His mum was 10 ft, and his dad was 8ft. But it's important to consider age of parents as well - retics can become sexually mature and breed at a particular size that may be nowhere close to where they eventually end up!

Again, more excellent info Lisa - I'm learning a lot about Retics :)

Where eventual adult size is concerned, I'd be skeptical of seeing the parent breeder animals and use them as a guide to assume that any offpsring your going to buy won't surpass them in size; there are 2 reasons for this -

(1) many breeders are known to keep their males small as they say 'it keeps them keen to breed' which, IMO, is half-believable. No-one tells male snakes in the wild to stay small - indeed in many species they EXCEED the size of the females at maturity. This means that, when you look at the male breeder, he may have been kept small by a lax feeding regime and so not give a good indication of the actual size that his offspring can attain. The same could happen with the female if, for example, she was bred at a young age.

(2) size is a sliding scale, with some individuals naturally growing faster and attaining larger sizes than others.....so you could in theory buy a neonate from parents that are both under 6ft in length and it could surpass this easily; the reverse could also happen.

I guess it all depends on what is causing the dwarfism (genetic and environmental factors) and how long the population of 'Super Dwarf' Retics that Bob and Mike collected has been isolated from other populations i.e. how 'fixed' is dwarfism genetically in that isolated population. Several so-called 'dwarf' snakes (such as some boa localities) attain larger sizes in captivity as food is not a limiting factor to growth here, yet in the wild they remain much smaller because food is scarce and so limits annual and lifelong growth.

As you've already mentioned, they key to dwarfing a snake in captivity is selective breeding from small parents i.e. parents that have not been kept artificially small by the keeper but rather who stay small as their genetics dictates it.

Yup, I totally agree and have dealt with this in the work I've done so far - and do warn that parent size is only a guidline, not a determining factor at all.
Which is why it's important to do a history check on parent animals, including a review of their diet. Their age is also important. A 4 yr old snake may still have a lot of growing to do.
HOwever, the available statistics (and there are some available) suggest that snakes from this superdwarf line will remain tiny. For me, the only way to assure purchases are from this line, is to see pics of the parents, know their ages/sizes/feeding regime and an established history. With WC individuals, this just isn't available - and there is always an element of chance.
Again, I don't want to go into too much detail here as i want to leave something for article!!! But, many people claim that these snakes have adapted to a particular environment with a limited food supply, and that as soon as they are brought into optimum feeding conditions in captivity, they will grow.

There have been a couple of studies carried out to date, which support the theory that while feeding regime is a factor, a more determining factor is the genetics at work. These studies are not as scientifically orientated, nor as widescale as I'd like to see...but they do provide some convincing evidence that even with heavy feeding regimes, these snakes stay small. The heavier fed specimens do grow larger than those fed a more 'superdwarf appropriate' diet...but still stay tiny. At least up until the age that has been studied.

Just a display of the classic intertwining of nature and nurture - why would it be any different?

I don't believe these particular retics will become huge overnight. I think in the future, they will possibly gain a reputation for growing larger than they should have and this will be due to misinformation, inprecise labelling, undisclosed interbreeding into other localities, sellers misleading buyers and non selective breeding in general.
The term 'superdwarf' is sure to lead to messiness in general...
But I truly believe, going on the research I've been doing, information i've been given by keepers and by my own experience of keeping different sized retics - that it is indeed possible to have a superdwarf retic that will stay very small and slender. Adult males have been compared to ratsnakes and females to a coastal carpet python by some of the most respected breeders in the world.
Can't ask for much more than that!
Buy from repected breeders, do your research and i doubt you'll be disappointed. adult sizes are speaking for themselves now, even though dwarf (and a small % of mainland blood) has been added to most from this line...
And be very, very weary of other 'superdwarf' lines....

Well now if a female Superdwarf is loike a Coastal carpet, I may just have to get one of those

and they hatch out at lighter weights than royal pythons. You know you'll buy one before long, Karl!

Lisafay....you're a very naughty girl !! All this talk about 4-6 foot retics is only putting temptation in my path here ...
Like Karl, I could be tempted to keep these little guys here as have always been put off by the adult sizes of retics ....

haha That's my plan. Then i'll have plenty of buyers waiting in line whenever i get around to breeding mine
Don't get too hung up on length either - we have mainland, dwarf and superdwarf sizes in house - and just the difference in scale is unbelievable. There is just no comparison. The superdwarfs really are so colubrid like in comparison - they have very distinct dainty heads and stay very slim and manageable.
My little male never misses a feed and he's like a cornsnake at almost two years old. He just seems to grow in length- not in girth. I doubt he'll ever be able for a bigger feed than a weaner rat.
I was very sceptical about these SD's at first, but I have to say I'm blown away by just how tiny and cute they are