Ball Python Sexing

Determining the sex of your snake is a good thing to do or have done.

There are a couple of reasons for wanting to know the sex of your snake.

First: If you're a breeder, you need to know the sex to help you determine who you are going to be breeding your snake to. Most breeders look for females that are normal, and males that are a morph.

Normal/Morph: what are you talking about. A normal Ball Pythons typically has light brown splotches all over it's body with black outlining them, the belly is typically off white with splotches of black. A morph can be extremely different, their whole body can be pearl white, or white with orangish yellow splotches, an Albino. Or black with really bright yellow splotches, a Lemon Pastel. There are too many to even consider listing here.

OK, back to our original subject, determining the sex. There are two ways you can go about this, the first way is probing, used the most by pet stores and owners of older snakes. The second is the popping method. This method is used by experienced breeders and owners of young snakes.

Probing: To do this you would hold the snakes tail bottom up. You will then lubricate a sexing probe, which can be purchased in most reptile shops or online. You take the rounded tip and insert it into the cloaca towards to snakes tail. You DO NOT need to force it in, this can cause damage. Slowly inserting it into the genitalia. When you feel a slight resistance you stop and and place your finger at the point the probe and body meet. Slowly pull the probe out while holding that spot. This will enable you to count the sub scales on the underside of the snakes belly. Place the probe right next to the body towards the tail and count the amount of scales form cloaca entrance to the tip of the probe, males can range from eight to ten sub scales. There are known cases where the male only measured five to six. Females typically measure from two to four sub scales. Do to the variance this method of sexing is not always accurate.

Popping: This has to be done by someone with experience. When popping you are forcing the hemipenis out of the male and the hemilogs out of the female. This method is best done on newly hatched to young snakes. As they age they can control their body parts better. This is the most accurate method when done correctly. To do this method you should place the snakes head and upper half of the body into a snake bag. You will then grab the tail and flip it upside down, slowly apply pressure from the end of the tail toward the cloaca, please DO NOT APPLY TOO MUCH PRESSURE. This action with force the hemipenis and hemilog out to see. A female has small nubs, while a male has a long narrow tube resembling a penis. Again this method is best practiced by someone with experience.

I hope you have learned a little something today. There are several great books like Ball Pythons, by the Barker's with photo's and technique. Visit our site and become a member of the ball python forum. You can post question there and get additional answers.

Eric Rovegno
http://www.ballpythonplanet.com

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Burns Bog - Delta, BC

Burns Bog is a unique, urban wetland in the Fraser River delta, less than 15 km from the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Named after Patrick Burns, the former owner, the Burn Bog is the largest domed peat bog on the Pacific coast of North America. Due to its many Arctic plant species, the Bog is described "as a northern island in a southern clime".

Burns Bog once covered about 10,000 acres but now has been whittled down to approximately 7000 acres. Located in Delta, Bc, the Bog has been nicknamed "Lungs of Vancouver" as the bog helps clean the air over a wide area.

The Bog is home to variety of flora and fauna, majority of them found nowhere else in the Lower Mainland area. Burns Bog is home to approximately 22 species of raptors. It has 10 species of amphibians, 6 species of reptiles and up to 48 species of small mammals and several species of larger mammals. Mammals at Burns Bog include: red fox, black tailed deer, black bear, porcupine, bobcat, beaver, snowshoe hare, spotted skunk , the northwestern jumping mouse and the rare southern red-backed vole.

Sphagnum mosses form the base of Burns Bog and appear much like a thick carpet in various shades of green, red, and yellow on the Bog floor. The moss is acidic, poor in nutrients and holds water like a sponge. Plants in the Bog exhibit extremes of adaptation such as dwarfed pines, insect-eating plants and acid-producing mosses. This special community of bog plants is adapted to wet, acidic, and nutrient poor conditions. These plants can't compete with vegetation in richer soils and other vegetation can't compete in the bog.

About thirty per cent of the original bog area has been lost by development and more than half the remaining bog has been disturbed by human activities. The Bog is also isolated from adjacent natural ecosystems by urban, industrial and agricultural development. In March 2004, about 5000 acres of Burns Bog was purchased to be protected as the Burns Bog Ecological Conservancy Area. The four purchasing partners were the Province of British Columbia, the Greater Vancouver Regional District, the Corporation of Delta, and Canada. A legally binding conservation covenant was placed on the property to ensure that Burns Bog is protected and managed effectively as a natural ecosystem.

Sapan Behar is a Real Estate Agent based in Langley, British Columbia. He specializes in residential real estate in Delta and Fraser Valley rural real estate. Sapan is associated with Royal LePage Wolstencroft Realty Ltd., a full service real estate brokerage located in Langley, BC and runs the most advanced Fraser Valley real estate website.

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Seismic Creep Theory and Patterns of Erosion - Can We Know the Truth?

Perhaps you have heard of the Seismic Creep Theories, they are indeed quite interesting, but are not acknowledged by most Geo or Earth Scientists presently. Indeed they are someone hard to prove, although those who believe them say the evidence is obvious, and overwhelming. The Theory stems from a basic premise that the Earth is Expanding, which is similar in nature to the Pangaea Continent Theories of Earth's ancient past.

In studying this theory, which appears to be quite plausible, I asked those who are pushing this concept to the scientific forefront if they have ever considered that we might be able to use Steven Wolfram's Mathematica concepts to prove the theory to some degree. The reason I say this is because it appears to me that erosion is predictable in patterns. So once you know the erosion factor, anything else is an anomaly of another sort, thus something else; perhaps seismic creep.

Still, even with the seismic creep theory, or the similar current continental drift theories, the measurements are difficult to see and the larger jumps caused by noticeable events, such as for instance Earthquakes, where we can see them on the surface or feel them under our feet - they are not often enough for us to plot out an exact past. Forensic Earth Science, should be able to accurately measure into the future, thus guess the past through inference, but they cannot know for sure.

Some of these big events might be happening a lot more rapidly in certain time periods? Maybe due to Earth wobbling, buffeting in space, increased gravity, after all the Earth would be zero or negative gravity in the center, pulling itself outward in all directions, leaving space inside, cavities, or less dense than we think? The Earth could very well be expanding, it is well within the laws of planetary physics.

If so, then the Seismic Creep Theory holds water, and speaking of water, this would mean that the water would be receding not flooding the continent, like the Sci Fi apocalyptic movie; Inconvenient Truth. Of course, now we are getting into politics and new paradigm of pay-as you-go or pay-for-the-results you want scientific studies, and well, I just will not go there with you today.

Learn More about these topics:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Secrets-of-The-Mathematical-Symmetry-of-Nature-and-Patterns-of-Erosion&id=24194

http://geology.com/pangea.htm

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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