The best Christmas present!
Neville Reibelt has been refining some beautiful lines of pythons for two decades,
but got an unexpected surprise a couple of years back.
The season before last, I was pipping a clutch from
one of my albino Darwins, when I came across an
animal that looked like it had shit on itself inside the
egg. Just then, a mate rang and I told him about it.
“Don’t do any more until I get there!” he said –
obviously he had guessed what it might be. When
he arrived we started going through the other eggs.
With mounting excitement we found a second and
then a third Paradox; three in the one clutch.
Christmas is my favourite time of year as you
never know what you are going to get when all the
eggs start hatching. Occasionally something
different crops up, and that’s what really keeps me
going.
The female that produced the clutch is a long-time
breeder that hatched in November 2007. She
doesn’t lay every year, and didn’t have any eggs the
year before the Paradox animals were produced, or
the year after (which was last year), but has had a
lot of progeny and never before thrown anything like
them. She was originally from Simon Stone’s line,
which is interesting, as Simon did produce at least
one Paradox albino Darwin. When I saw it in about
2007, it was already an adult, and had a few black
patches. The other interesting thing is that every
other clutch my female has produced has
comprised a total of 19-21 eggs, whereas the one
that included the Paradox animals was 30. I keep
careful records of my animals and there was no
difference in her weight.
The year the Paradox
animals came along was
the first time I had paired
my female with a het
albino Zebra male from
Dave Evans. I believe
the line came from down
south somewhere – there
is talk of someone down
there consistently pro-
ducing Paradox animals
from a couple of het
albinos. Unfortunately, I
subsequently lost the
Right (slide show): the
markings have evolved
considerably over time
(more than one snake
shown). Images by
Neville Reibelt.
male with myeloid leukaemia. When I took it to the
vet, he said it was the third snake he had seen with
the condition within a week.
My three Paradox snakes were all males. All had
nice markings, and they seemed to develop more
black as they aged. I sold the two that had smaller
blotches and kept one which is very heavily marked.
I’ve had a couple of serious offers for it, but I figured
‘I didn't think much of the
Paradoxes at first, but they
have grown on me ....’
there are so f ew around I would keep one. To be
honest, I didn’t think much of the Paradoxes at first,
but they have grown on me, particularly with the
evolution of the markings.
I intend to put mine (which is now 18 months old)
back over his mum next season. He will be the only
male I use with her, and I will also put him with a
couple of other female Darwins. If the mother lays, I
will hold back a couple of pairs of the progeny –
even if there are no visual markers – just to see if
they are some sort of ‘hets’, with a genetic
predisposition to producing Paradox animals.