QQQSSSI
New member
Hello everyone!
I need your opinions.
I just finished student teaching and [hopefully] will soon be a certified 7-12 biology teacher. I'm thinking of a good "mascot animal" for a classroom and one snake that really caught my eye is the [black] Sumatran short-tail python.
I already have a young anery Kenyan Sand boa and two juvenile rubber boas. All three snakes, as I have found out during a children's summer camp, are fantastic animals for kids to handle. Most of the kids ended up loving them, even if they hated snakes before.
I would, however, also like a more "visually spectacular" animal to contrast against the little boas, especially the rubber boas that look like earthworms. I'm leaning towards Sumatran STB's for a few reasons:
1. I'm in New York State and short-tail pythons aren't a restricted species.
2. Male Sumatrans stay at a very manageable size, which is important since I'm not guaranteed to have a lot of free space in a future classroom.
3. They're very hefty animals that look much larger and more impressive than they actually are. Makes an excellent contrast against a tiny male sand boa.
4. Its a nice change of pace from Ball Pythons and Corn Snakes, which many of the students may have already seen before.
5. Its a snake that I'd want to keep as a pet anyway regardless of the classroom.
As for the questions:
Are there other snakes that you think would serve the "classroom mascot" purpose better than the short-tail pythons?
My only other experience with snakes are tiny little rubber/sand boas, is a short-tail python completely out of my league [other reptile experience are two kenyan zebra skinks and a male tegu]?
This has been bothering me for a while. How do you know if a short-tail python is overweight given that they're supposed to look really big and fat?
In the future I'd also love to get my hands on pseudoxenodon macrops for a demonstration of batesian mimicry, but that thing is completely out of my league and I think NYS might have a restriction on it for being rear-fanged anyway.
Thanks for the input!
I need your opinions.
I just finished student teaching and [hopefully] will soon be a certified 7-12 biology teacher. I'm thinking of a good "mascot animal" for a classroom and one snake that really caught my eye is the [black] Sumatran short-tail python.
I already have a young anery Kenyan Sand boa and two juvenile rubber boas. All three snakes, as I have found out during a children's summer camp, are fantastic animals for kids to handle. Most of the kids ended up loving them, even if they hated snakes before.
I would, however, also like a more "visually spectacular" animal to contrast against the little boas, especially the rubber boas that look like earthworms. I'm leaning towards Sumatran STB's for a few reasons:
1. I'm in New York State and short-tail pythons aren't a restricted species.
2. Male Sumatrans stay at a very manageable size, which is important since I'm not guaranteed to have a lot of free space in a future classroom.
3. They're very hefty animals that look much larger and more impressive than they actually are. Makes an excellent contrast against a tiny male sand boa.
4. Its a nice change of pace from Ball Pythons and Corn Snakes, which many of the students may have already seen before.
5. Its a snake that I'd want to keep as a pet anyway regardless of the classroom.
As for the questions:
Are there other snakes that you think would serve the "classroom mascot" purpose better than the short-tail pythons?
My only other experience with snakes are tiny little rubber/sand boas, is a short-tail python completely out of my league [other reptile experience are two kenyan zebra skinks and a male tegu]?
This has been bothering me for a while. How do you know if a short-tail python is overweight given that they're supposed to look really big and fat?
In the future I'd also love to get my hands on pseudoxenodon macrops for a demonstration of batesian mimicry, but that thing is completely out of my league and I think NYS might have a restriction on it for being rear-fanged anyway.
Thanks for the input!
