Pablo and Mercedes...

Been awhile since I posted these two, and since they both shed within the past 4 days, I took a few pics during feeding tonight. I'm still amazed at how different they look. They're 1 year apart in age (3 and 4 years old), only 500g different in weight now (Mercedes caught up well in the past few months), but Pablo is still so orange and blank with a crisp white belly while Mercedes is very patterned, more brown, and more iridescent. I have paired them twice so far but haven't witnessed any breeding activity -- more to get them introduced to each other so that when they're together for the long haul, it won't be a big change. Since putting them together, Mercedes has developed a big color change -- she's gotten these bluish gray sides which makes her pattern more evident, and now she is REALLY rainbowy. She just shed 2 days ago so it has nothing to do with being blue. She just looks so different now -- I thought that as she gained weight, she would dull out and look more like Pabs...but she's gone even more drastically colorful. Thoughts?

Pablo:





Mercedes:





This was Mercedes just 2 months ago...:



Any ideas on what caused her color change?

Originally Posted by JenHarrison

Any ideas on what caused her color change?

No idea, just wanted to say she's beautiful.

I was just gonna say the same thing Kerry! ha ha

She is really pretty!

Nice! What subspecies are those?

As for the color change, lots of neonate Boa Constrictor, and many python species undergo a lot of change during their first couple years. Could be it's the same with these guys.

You can actually see it very faintly in the last picture of Mercedes, an underlying pattern of sorts. Looks the same in Pablo's pictures too IMO, but more obvious.


Thanks for sharing!
Rick

every rainbow i ever owned including columbians changes color on the sides at night. check it out, its really cool. even my brazilians do it as well.

They're Colombian rainbows, and she's never changed color until the last 2 weeks after I had put her in with Pablo. Jeff Clark on KS mentioned that his rainbows go "white-sided" during breeding season, so this may be what that is. Mercedes has always had more of a pattern than Pablo, he was always very blank, but now she REALLY shows up. It's incredible. I'm so glad I ended up getting these two, they are really interesting and great animals, I enjoy having them. Fantastic eaters too!

Colombian, OK. I never can get those right on first look. LOL

One Boa I never dealt with. But I would eventually like to have one, and a Brazilian, and a Rosy, and a Rubber. (I could go on if I wanted too) LOL

I've had a Brazilian too, and honestly I like the Colombians better. They're so much different than my ball pythons -- they're outgoing, curious, never nervous or shy, VERY intelligent, and they never turn down food. They're really great to have. I'm looking forward to seeing babies from them -- not for profit, but because this will be the first live snake birth for me and I enjoy these guys so much that I can't wait to see their offspring. Pablo is a special one -- he was kept by a very inexperienced keeper that kept him really hot at 95-100 degrees, not realizing that rainbows can't handle temps that high. It cooked his noodle and he has a bit of brain damage from it. He has trouble shedding his skin off, like he doesn't realize he needs to (although has gotten better lately) and when he eats, he has to have prekilled food because he doesn't know how to constrict it -- he just twists it around. But other than that, he's normal.

Interesting. I plan on having a Boa Zoo to keep me busy in retirement. All species and sub-species. Rainbows are just a couple of the many I have much to learn about. LOL I've done Boa Constrictor for a long time, but not many else.