# Carpet pythons at Melbourne zoo



## Fuscus (Dec 22, 2003)

Its scary when an organization as great as the Melbourne Zoo puts out a web page like this

http://www.zoo.org.au/animal_page.cfm?area_id=25&zoo_id=1&animal_id=161

Or am I just too fussy?


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## wattso (Dec 22, 2003)

Lol its a "very limited fact's" sheet


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## Fuscus (Dec 22, 2003)

Look at the photo and the scientific name. They are both carpets but ...


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## mystic_herps (Dec 22, 2003)

I believe at one point all species of carpets were classed as variegata before they were scientifically named as subspecies...


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## Fuscus (Dec 22, 2003)

That makes sense, I seem to (dimly) remenber a time when there were only Diamonds and Carpets. Then the type locale for the variegata was Darwin. Variegata is a good name for carpets as a whole but fits less well for the Darwin variety.

Just looked at my books - the Ehmann book (My favorite book - which I purchased in 1994 and was published in 1992) has only three sub species
_M. s. spilota_ the diamond
_M. s. imbricata_ the form from south west WA
_M. s. variegata_ the rest

Thanx Mysty


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## mystic_herps (Dec 22, 2003)

No worries!

I hate when they change the scientific names all the time.
Thankfully at this point of time reptiles are not changing regularly as is happening in other hobbies.Although I believe there to be confusion between Antaresia & Liasis in the children species,as well as variegata & sub species of carpets to an extent (due to older writings in books that are way past due).In the cichlid hobby it gets rather confusing.I have been away for a few years and just starting to return and most of the fish I know have had name changes lol...


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## africancichlidau (Dec 22, 2003)

Melbourne Zoo is in Melbourne, Victoria and Victoria lists ALL carpets as M.S.Variegata apart from the Bredl.


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## mystic_herps (Dec 22, 2003)

They still do Afric?


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## Fuscus (Dec 22, 2003)

Yea - the african cichlids and the darwf ciclid names seemed to change every second week. 
Was it you who said that they are working in giving the integrade coastal full sub-species status? And ther is work going on with Antaresia - the stimpsons could be sub-divided.
Just looking at the Coggers book (2000 edition). It has the carpet python divided the same as the older Ehmann book as well as all the _Antaresia_ lumped in with _Liasis_. But the worse mistake is that it has the Adelaide Blue tongue rated as extinct dispite a good color picture in the appendix. Just to put the record straight, I think that overall it is a very good book and a work of this size is a major piece of work but I think his updates are just additions to the appendix. It is overdue for a major revision.


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## africancichlidau (Dec 22, 2003)

Yup, still do Mystic


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## mystic_herps (Dec 22, 2003)

Fuscus said:


> Was it you who said that they are working in giving the integrade coastal full sub-species status? And ther is work going on with Antaresia - the stimpsons could be sub-divided.



Nope wasn't me.
I think that was no-one that mentioned that.


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## wattso (Dec 22, 2003)

Ive seen Blue varigata's in a book of australian snakes by Graham gow. Quite a striking snake. mind its an old book, it aslso had carpets/diamonds /varigata but no new subspecies names i.e mcdowellii ...imbricata etc


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## mystic_herps (Dec 22, 2003)

Weird rules in Vic then lol.

So I take it variegata is written in record keeping books for all carpet species? 

Wouldnt this make cross breeding a very easy practise in that state  
Very scary thought...


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## Fuscus (Dec 22, 2003)

In SA it is illegal to cross breed, even between sub-species. So it is quite possible for last years young to suddenly become illegal.


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## saikrett (Dec 23, 2003)

there are 8 sub-species on the NSW licencse
Morelia bredli
Morelia spilota
Morelia s. cheynei
Morelia s. imbricata
Morelia s. mcdowelli
Morelia s. mcdowelli / spilota (natural intergrade)
Morelia s. metcalfei
Morelia s. variegata


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## Fuscus (Dec 23, 2003)

SA only has _M. spilota_ and _M. bredli_ on the list.
Does this mean that the jungles I'm importing will change sub-species? lol.


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## saikrett (Dec 23, 2003)

my guess is that you could just put them under m. Spilota as the jungles in NSW are classes as 
m. Spilota cheynei.


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## Fuscus (Dec 23, 2003)

In SA you ID the species by a code. All _M. spilota_ go under the code c2625. It appears that the diamond has been recently moved into that code.
Anyhow, its only red tape, I'll mark then in the book as _M. spilota_ c2625 but refer to then as cheynei. That way everyone is happy


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## saikrett (Dec 23, 2003)

sounds good


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2003)

in nsw we also got morelia amethisina and our green tree pythons anre chrondropython viridis does other states have chrondopython or morelia? ive seen green tree pythons listed as both


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## sobrien (Dec 23, 2003)

Just to back up af, he's right. Green tree pythons are listed as chrondropython viridis and Scrubbies are Morelia.


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