Taxonomy
& Species Accounts :: Ecology :: Biology :: Captive Care & Breeding
:: Misc topics
|
Captive Care & Breeding |
|
Captive Care Northern WLP Southern WLP Breeding |
Captive Care: Southern White-Lipped Python |
|
|
The southern White-Lipped Pythons are rarly held in captivity because of it's higher price and limited availability in pet trade. This species is also not easy to breed, and WC animals often will never breed at all. Most of the Southern White-Lipped Pythons exported for pet trade come from localities around Timika or Freeport. As already mentioned in my paper, these specimens show an abberant head scalation in the parietal area in that they have two pairs of parietal scales (for additional information, see L. hoserae), and are somewhat lighter in color, being more greyish-brown, rather than black as specimens from PNG. The Timika-/Freeport area shows much higher annual rainfall than found in Merauke, the Western Province or around Port Moresby. |
|
 Figure 21: Large female southern White-Lipped Python in captivity. Cage / Terrarium The Southern White-Lipped Python can get up to 3 m (10 ft) in length with a weight of up to 7 kg. Therefore, they need a larger cage and more stable perches than the Northern White-Lipped Python! Behavior This species is generally more accessible than the Northern White-Lipped Python, nevertheless, it is also an alert species. Given the opportunity, this species will shelter most time of the day. This species is more a ground-dwelling species, which often diggs tunnel systems into the substrate and moves within these tunnels. This behavior is also found in neonate and semiadult Northern White-Lipped Pythons, but not often seen in adults. Housing a large female and a large male together, I found that both specimens were less active and more shy. They almost never came out of their shelter. After separating them again, both specimens again started to move around the cage, drinking and climbing about an hour after the lights went out. Although both specimens are wc animals from around Timika (South-west Papua), they are absolutly tame. They can easily be taken out of the cage.  Figure 22: Large adult female southern White-Lipped Python. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 2001-2009
by Wulf Schleip