From:
Aspidites ramsayi (Macleay 1882)
Woma
original text: Neil Sonnemann
The woma python which Ramsay (former name of the species) is a medium sized python, which can reach 2.3 meters. It is found in inland Australia and color varies depending on its origin. The woma is found in desert areas and many regional forms are recognized. For example there is the shape of the Northern Territory (shape of the Tanami Desert) form South Australian south-west of Western Australia and the shape of south east Queensland.
While the woma is protected over much of its range deforestation and predators are responsible for its decline in southern Western Australia.
The woma python is a nice pale brown to yellowish or reddish-brown and olive with numerous irregular dark bands. The belly is cream to pale yellow with irregular patches. Young specimens are often remarkable black mark on top of each eye, which usually fades with maturity. It is a hardy species with the head slightly wider than the neck and without heat-sensitive pits. Both sexes possess cloacal spurs, the tail is not prehensile.
The woma biotope consists of arid sandy area wooded with scrub bushes. They are most often encountered in the sand dunes with spinifex grasses of the genus and are known to hide in cracks in rocks, hollow tree trunk abandoned burrows or under vegetation.
The woma is land and can dig its own burrow in soft soil. This species mostly at night but she was occasionally observed warming during the day.
A prey to. Ramsayi are mammals and reptiles, including snakes, however, a wide variety of lizards is consumed.
Mating takes place from May to August with 14 eggs laid in September-October. Births take place in late November-December.
Management captive
The usual techniques for selecting couples were used. All subjects are kept in a room heated and insulated.
The adults are kept in terrariums against wood veneer about 1 square meter. The juveniles are kept for their rack in containers of 18 liter plastic on a shelf.
The substrate is made of crushed rock used for the manufacture of road (7 mm diameter), white, washed in a cement mixer to remove dirt and dust particles and then air dry. A depth of about 75 mm is required.
For much of the year the room temperature breeding varies throughout the day around 30 degrees, dropping to 20 ° at night.
Heated spots are added to get hot temperatures that are maintained to 30 °. During the hours of lighting an average of 30 ° to 42 ° are recorded. The minimum temperature recorded during the winter is 17 °. The duration of heating time varies depending on the seasons, a minimum of 8-9 hours in winter to maximum 14 hours in summer. No heating is not working the night temperature falling pens at room temperature in the room. The womas warms during the day and love in their hiding place in the winter to conserve heat.
The temperature is cycled to cause the coupling of pythons. During the spring and summer temperatures are maintained within a narrow range. At the beginning of the breeding season in autumn the high and low temperatures are changed gradually, with the lowest recorded during the winter in June and July. The high temperatures are increased to compensate for the lower night temperatures and decreasing illumination duration.
Thermostats for heat lamps are set to their maximum of 40 ° from autumn to spring.
Natural light provides the natural photoperiod for northern Victoria, Australia.
Supplies pens are made of gravel, a bowl of water and a hiding place against plywood brought to a place of comfortable size the snake.
Adults are fed on laboratory rats. They are fed on freshly killed or thawed prey. Most take the prey on the ground of the terrarium. Meal frequency varies throughout the year, usually adults stop feeding from March until spring. Females refuse their food until they pondu.Les juveniles can be fed all year if they are kept warm in the winter.
Adults are fed ad libitum during the spring summer and fall, and until they cease to themselves in winter. 2 large adults accept adult rats.
Young people generally accept NC rodents and grow rapidly because of their good appetite, however, some individuals may be picky by refusing their meals for no apparent reason. One of them refused to eat by itself for 13 months he was assisted by giving the tails of rats during this period. He began to feed on chickens and quail eat now young rats. Some youth were started by placing feathers in the mouths of rodents.
Sexing:
Sexing is done by sampling, the probe penetrating sub-scales up to 8-12 caudeales males against 3-4 in females (Barker & Barker 1994).
Many maintenance data were published by different authors including: Barker & Barker 1994, Gow 1989, Greer 1997, 1999 and Oliver Morley in 2005. This report presents data from 15 clutches after eight captive females during the period 2000 to 2005.
A male newborn was obtained in June 1998 at Mr. Oliver Bradley.
Independently two females were taken from the Adelaide Zoo in February 2000, all specimens are from northern South Australia.
Female (CA # 970032) has laid fertile eggs and offspring is the purpose of this study, one female (# 990 027 AC) was not repeated.
Coupling:
Mating begins in May and continue until mid-July.
The male is always introduced into the terrarium of the female and this one location and immediately courted. If the couple is compatible mating takes place during the first two days after the introduction of the male. Often the male shows no interest in the female. This is probably owed to the fact that the female is not receptive when the male is immature.
Both sexes usually have a pre-season molt after the young in the fall. The couples are presented after mue.Les males are placed in the female for a week, then removed one week before being presented again for the same period. Most mating occurs in May and June and late July they stopped. Males are removed in late July.
Ponte:
Most pundits are held in November. E box wooden bridge with a hinge for inspection is provided to them. Thereby observed the females before and during spawning.
Crumpled newspaper is put in the box to provide a place where the female will feel safe and it is moistened with a spray when spawning approach.
Often a few days before spawning the female becomes very active, moving in their terrarium to find the best place to build their nests.
The last day, when the two last days before spawning they rarely venture out of their hiding place. Once the last egg is laid, they are all removed from the mother and then separated from the cluster before being incubated artificially.
Incubation:
Incubation maternal leaving eggs available to it has not been attempted, due to too dry conditions in terrariums.Il is as important as the female starts to feed as soon as possible. Left the female with her eggs for a week, then clean the substrate removes the smell of eggs, which has the effect of allowing the female to start feeding.
Standard techniques of Barker & Barker (1994) for the incubation of eggs were used python. The incubation temperature is 31.5 ° + / - 1 °.
A ratio of vermiculite by weight of 0.8 / 1 is used in nesting boxes .. It is a mixture drier than for most other species of pythons, with 500 g of vermiculite mixed with 400 ml of water in a baking cake.
Each of these containers contains eight eggs half buried in the vermiculite, with a wide space between each egg.
The eggs are separated immediately after spawning and before that they adhere to each other. The eggs have a woma relatively thin shell and the separation of eggs may nevertheless be made several hours after spawning.
Most eggs are pure white when first laid, and can be candled with a small flashlight to see if they contain blood vessels, indicating that they are fertilized. All eggs are incubated look good, except those that are obviously too small, yellow, therefore infertile or those who look like slugs (slugs).
The hatching process of laying can take between one week or the first time is pierced and when the last serpent emerges. Young people are often one or two days in the bud, when their head is going out of the shell, before finally emerging from it. When the first egg is punctured or beyond 50 days, all others are open. This is done by making an incision along the length of the top of the egg using nail scissors curved. This ensures that young people can take their breath and are stuck unable to go out for any reason. With this method a large percentage of youth are obtained from fertilized eggs. Most of the serpents out without assistance.
Newborns:
After hatching, all newborns are removed from the nesting box and placed individually in a plastic rearing as big as a flat cake.
Gravel are used as a substrate and are changed as needed. A small water dish and a plastic bowl using cache are added. These containers are acceptable for woma, but for a short period only. When they become too large, they require suitable enclosure sizes.
Conclusion:
The 8 females laid a total of 173 eggs in 15 clutches from 2000 to 2005. Of which 172 were fertile, 79% hatch.
Most matings took place in June and most of the pundits in November.
Sexual maturity is reached between two and three years and the females lay for the first time in 2.5 years.
The reproductive effort is calculated by weighing the egg and the female at the end of it. which gives the relative percentage laid the weight of the female.
The effort means of reproduction obtained is 0.53. This means that the weight of the eggs is 53% of the female.
The egg heaviest weighed 84 gr. The average weight of a fertile egg is 66 grams.
Data are available on the reproduction of the shape of southern Australia (Morley 1999) and Oliver (2005). The animals of this study are juveniles from farms mentioned above.
Morley (1999) recorded a clutch of 14 eggs. Four of them contained more than 12 eggs. Oliver (2005) reports a clutch of 30 eggs produced by a very large and old female. Gow (1989) also mentions a clutch, at Joe Bredl, 28 eggs laid by a female native of Moomba in South Australia.
Shine (1991) mention an average of 14 eggs after specimens caught in the wild, however we do not know what these people are from.
The females of this form seems to grow more, and be longer than females of other recognized forms, and are capable of laying 30 eggs. The female of this study to 8 eggs produced in his first laying eggs and 11.15 and 17 subsequent years. Which coincides with the increasing weight of the female of 959 gr to 2kg070 at the fourth spawning.
After 5 years the female to more than double its weight before spawning the number of eggs has doubled since the first egg. The weight of eggs also increased from an average of 68 gr to 71 gr. During this time the reproductive effort remained relatively constant from 56% to 58%.
The data in the farm included the time between ovulation and oviposition, which is on average 48 days, and the time between pre-molt egg production and egg production is about 26 days. Oliver (2005) recorded in the same period of 48 days but a shorter time after molting of pre-spawning 16 days.
The reproductive effort of this study is 53% of 9 pundits, Greer (1997) reports an average of 36%.
Females outnumber males with a sex ratio of 0.78 males to one female obtained on 134 births.
Many young people are hungry at the end of the egg and drink if they are placed in a container with water. A baby was found drinking the amniotic fluid of the egg before emerging. This may be due to the fact that it adapts to a dry environment to maintain moisture.
The woma python is an easy to maintain and reproduce. This is one of the most easily manipulated reptiles on the market. It has all the attributes of an animal captive by temperament and adult size small.
It has the potential to become the python chosen by many breeders.
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