Boelens pythons mating

I always go to see these snakes as soon as I arrive at the zoo. They are most active early in the morning, but I didn't expect to see them mating. Female on the left and male on the right, note that he is using his anal spur to stimulate her (almost level with the horizontal crack in the rockwork). Islands in Danger, Chester, 13th October 2012

I am some what confused on this situation - I thought the two in 'Islands in Danger' were 2.0? Could somebody clarify the situation?

Jordan-Jaguar97 said:

I am some what confused on this situation - I thought the two in 'Islands in Danger' were 2.0? Could somebody clarify the situation?

Click to expand...

They were when they first went on-show,but over the last 6 months or so the zoo has been,changing it round a fair bit,so that you could have 3 or 2 on-show at any time in any given combination that you can make from those numbers!

On my most recent visits there have been 3 specimens, which I guess might be 2.1, note that it is possible for at least one snake to get completely out of sight on top of the lights above the viewing window. Last Saturday when I took this photo there was a fairly freshly shed skin in the exhibit - but the snake that looked newly shed was the one which was not mating.

Alan

Getting them to copulate is easy enough, the difficulty is getting the female to ovulate.