Not sure 4 degrees is a safe cut off point. In the wild pythons can escape the cold by going underground etc. I would be thinking more like 14 degrees. Im just throwing that number out there, maybe diamonds can go lower but 4 degrees sounds dangerously cold to me. Just my two bob. Cheers!
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Hi mate, I understand what your saying, yes 4 degrees is cold...damn cold. Would probably kill most subspecies of morelia, apart from diamonds, and maybe Bredli and Metcalfi.
I've been studying wild diamonds for many years now and all my keeping and breeding skills comes from these studies. As a reptile relocator here on the central coast I see many, many diamonds. I have personally observed and recorded the body temperature of a wild diamond at 4 degrees.
I say 4 degrees here, not meaning for it to be a cut off point, but more just because this is the very lowest I have ever recorded body temps. They may survive even lower! But not much.
I understand it will sound far fetched to many people, but this snake was perfectly healthy and very robust young male of about 4 years old, 1.6m long. He was in a position that received early morning sunlight and was lying on mulch on the ground protected from the wind. For the area he was in, 4 degrees in the morning is not a common theme in winter, temps will drop here regularly though to between 5 and 10. Using a thermo gun I recorded his exterior exposed skin temp, internally he would have been warmer, especially around the vital organs. I personally believe that this would be very very close to their lower parameters of what they can handle, and only viable as long as they get their temps back up to at least the mid to late teens soon after.
There is some very good info on diamonds in that book called "The complete Carpet Python", I remember reading that section and thinking at the time how well the author (cant remember name)mostly... got it right. I read and hear a lot of stuff on here and other sites and books, about diamonds, that I don't agree with, like the woman who reckoned diamonds are a weaker subspecies then all other morelia, or that they are more difficult to keep then others........ but this is plain wrong, they thrive in the right conditions, and I have mountains of evidence that they are just as solid as anything else, it is basically keeper error or lack of understanding of their natural environment that is their demise in captivity.
For example, a diamond will hunt and feed at 18-20 degrees, they can metabolise and digest slower and in cooler temps and remain healthy, I quite often find males at this time of year right now coming out with the warmer weather that have rock solid lumps of old urates in their gut still from the last feed of rat they took after following the rats into the roofs of houses where they end up spending winter when it gets to cold to be mobile. They can have two or three of these lumps in them and they just crap it out nce they start moving around again.
I have also witnessed wild male diamonds fighting over a female!
So I need to get them separated pronto haha.
