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Dwarf Indigo or just a short body type?

M

molurusbreedingcente

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How can you tell a dwarf indigo for sure?

We recently received a female eastern Indigo that is 2.5 years old but only 3 ft! It has a normal tail length but the body shape is strange. It looks thick like a Cottonmouth, very stout. My concern is it will not grow to normal length and will not lay very many eggs if at all. It was sold to us as a breeder.

Pictures below:

Anyway to tell one of these for sure!

Thanks
Wlamore
 
In a nutshell,...time. Only time will tell. But it's looking that way now. If this snake dosen't hit 5.5 feet by 4 years old, it probably won't. Although I have noticed that growth rates between individual animals can vary somewhat. And I have noticed that growth rates are not constant. They grow in lulls, and spurts,...fast periods, and slow periods. She may be in a lull, and may speed up later on. So again, only time will tell. Keep us posted.
T.
 
Criteria

There really is no hard and fast rule to distinguish what criteria should be used to determine whether or not a speciemn is a true dwarf and such a topic would provide an excellent opportunity for a study. Unfortuantely, there really are not enough specimens to conduct a controlled study and breeding such specimens could have a very undesirable outcome.
Studies regarding other species have shown specimens demonstrating dwarfism, what is commonly referred to as Failure to thrive, or FTT, generally harbor other disorders, immunologic, neurological and visual anomalies are a few indicated.
The empirical data so far suggests a specimen that has been fed and maintained adequately, which has not reached 48" by its second DOB to be a dwarf. However, much is still unknown regarding the factors which cause this anomaly among reptiles and there are many reasons for such.
In short, no pun intended, if a specimen is questionable it would be wise not to breed it, as the captive D. couperi and D. m erebennus gene pool is much too shallow to knowingly take such risks and we must be good stewards of what we have... IMHO

Best regards,

Jeff
 
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