hey everyone we're doing another species spotlight today and this is one i've been
very much looking forward to doing i have been holding off on it for a little while because
honestly she's not great on camera and i don't like having bites on camera if i can help it
but i'm actually kind of running a little bit low and on time as well like i said in
other videos i've been absolutely crazy busy but without further ado we're gonna hope for the best
today we're gonna be talking about angolan pythons so angolan pythons are honestly one of the rarest
snakes in the hobby there are plenty of others out there that are just as rare if not more so but
these guys are really really cool these guys were originally found in 1887 by westerners
for the very first time in parts of nambia and in parts of angola and actually basically along the
eastern part of that saharan of the nambian desert so when you think about africa there's the big
the big saharan desert and then further south along the south eastern side uh southwestern
side is the nambian desert and on the eastern part of that desert this is the range of the
angolan pythons a really interesting thing about these guys which actually it shares in common with
a lot of other snakes in the hobby is that the rains actually exist a lot more in namibia than
it does in angola but that was the country where they were first exported hence angle and python
just like a lot of other species of snakes like the russian sand boas and the russian rat snakes
and things like that so when you very first look at this it obviously looks very similar to a
ball python and in fact they are very closely related but there are quite a few differences
between the angolan python and ball pythons so first of all the range we talked about the
difference these guys are more arid desiree type snakes and ball pythons are much more subtropical
so when we look at these guys there's a few physical characteristics they're a little bit
different so number one they are a little bit longer in general so on average ball pythons
or they're in that four and a half foot range five feet is pretty big for a female and there are some
that can even reach six feet and over these guys average that five to five and a half foot range
and they can get a little bit longer they're also not usually quite as chunky however wild ball
pythons are not nearly as chunky either and then they also if you look they have much larger eyes
and they have smaller heads and then obviously the very very end uh their scalation is entirely
different and then in addition to that there's no morphs these guys ball pythons being very famous
for number one being the pet rocks that we have and then number two all the morph that
they have these guys don't have any morphs that's probably because we just haven't bred them enough
now every single one of these characteristics they have for a specific reason a lot of that has to
do with their environment so that eastern part of the namibian desert the temperature ranges of that
is insane in the dry sun in the dry season or in the summer it can get over 122 degrees fahrenheit
in the winter it can get between 50 to below 32 degrees fahrenheit so that's you know zero
degrees celsius for everybody not in the us um so it's it fluctuates like crazy there and so like a
lot of ectothermic animals so like reptiles and amphibians they're not active during the really
hottest parts of the season they're not active during the very coldest parts of the season but
when they are active they're out during the times of day when that's actually you know amenable for
them so these guys so we talked about those larger eyes being that the temperature fluctuations so
crazy these guys are a lot more active at night than a lot of other species of snakes specifically
the ball python so they have those larger eyes to allow for a little bit more light to come in
another one thing is like i said before they have those smaller heads these guys their diets because
again they spend a lot of time looking for their uh prey actively more than fall pythons do
they live in areas where they pray is attracted to them as well as searching it out these guys
actively look for their food a little more more often at night and that involves sticking their
heads down into a lot of rodent burrows into ground nesting bird nests and so that smaller
head allows them to actually go into those rodent burrows and grab those animals out a
little bit easier and then the last and most distinctive characteristic is their scalation
so we're not talking about the pattern although pattern is really cool it works for breaking
up their pattern along the ground and rocks and things like that but their actual scalation has
to do with their environment so if you look it's not really scales it's almost like little beads
just like gila monsters beta lizards savannah monitors even some species of desert tortoise
they all have that beaded scalation in in verse over in the indifference of say regular skeleton
of like a bow or a python or even like a other type of turtle when we're talking about the desert
tortoise and that's for water retention those little beads actually allow their bodies to retain
moisture a lot better and a lot more effectively than say any other scale which obviously does
add for moisture retention as well as protection but those beads are in fact an adaptation to more
desert or air dwelling reptiles it's a really really cool cool cool thing now if you were to
go out into angola uh you're going to run into some issues so the reason why we don't have a
whole lot of these and honestly we haven't studied them or kept them nearly as long or as often which
is probably again why we don't have any morphs as a lot of other species of snakes is because
where they're from so obviously they're from an area where it's not very habitable for both
humans as well as other things which means looking for them is a little bit harder you have to go out
at night or you have to go into areas where they are normally found so these guys are found there
are oftentimes found in rock crevices in very sparsely areas where there are trees in burrows
especially in the more eastern part of the range where it gets into a little bit more of like
the classic savannah of africa that we think of they're found in very deep burrows so it's a lot
harder to dig for them than essentially going over and kicking over a termite mound in benin
or ghana for a ball python which i'm aware that's not exactly how it works but you get the point i'm
making that's a little bit harder to do and the other reason is that there was an angolan civil
war that went on for a number of years and it made it to where anyone who wanted to go in and
study these or even collect them because as we know collecting animals for the pet trade is a
very profitable business no one really wanted to risk it because of obviously the act of warfare
and then even once the angolan civil war ended there were landmines found throughout the areas
where these guys would be found so luckily it's been a little bit long uh longer time going on
as well as some of the land mines have started been removed uh thank you gambian giant pouched
rats those guys are awesome i wish i could keep those basically giant rats to go out and sniff for
lamb lights really really cool they're starting to be found a little bit more they're not societies
protected they're just hard to export so they're not really worked with a whole lot so most of the
animals that we have here in the hobby are captive bred animals and they're really really cool
um honestly i am super excited and i am absolutely digging how well she is doing right now um her
the male that we have doesn't do this at all she is a lot more handled in the mail but even then i
have to watch because she's she's sneaky too she's almost like a little scrub python where she'll
just watch and wait for me to get comfortable and then right on my face um but these guys
are really cool it there it seems like not to say that ball pythons are unintelligent because
all the reptiles are a lot smarter than we give them credit for but these guys seem to be
a lot more active and curious and a little bit more intensive when it comes to their interactions
with us and their environment it seems they're a little bit more aware of things than like to watch
stuff kind of like i said like that scrub python where some species of snakes like the scrubs and
retakes it almo you can literally watch like those like the clockwork ticking as they're watching you
and figuring you out and it seems like these guys do that a little bit too and honestly i can't wait
for this girl to get five and a half six feet long although i am still growing her so it's gonna take
a while um that it will be this really cool animal to where i'll be able to bring it out and people
will be able to feel the difference of her scales um it'll be i'm super excited i'm really digging
how well she's doing but if you guys ever want to go out and decide that you want to do add an end
goal and python to your uh to your collection or you want to be part of the group that is breeding
these so that way we're able to have them in the hobby for other generations that we have more than
just press the geckos and ball pythons a couple things you keep in mind number one the price tag
these guys are not cheap um because of the rarity there's a murderer market for it that means that
you're going to be paying a lot more the other thing is when you think about biodiversity
or genetic diversity not biodiversity you want to try to get unrelated pairs the pair i have are
actually a related pair so i have to go out and find another unrelated female to pair to my male
and then cross back in a couple generations down or other animals down the road because i'm not
doing uh brother to sister pairings that's i'm not i'm not really down with that but as far as actual
care goes you can keep them very similar to that of a ball python so you know they're obviously a
little bit larger so give more space so a 4x2 i think is a starting point for an adult angle
and python if you want to give them more room go for it they do like to perch as i said they like
to be found in like rock crevices and cages and systems like that so if you want to give them
places to perch up some heavier duty branches for them to kind of wrap up and hang out as well
that's really good as i said before they're found in the nambian desert so those super
hot temperatures but these guys really exist in micro climates in those little cave systems
and those rock croppings under those burrows and that's where they spend a majority of their time
during the day or when it's very cold out as well and they come out when it's more applicable for
them so we want to keep them in the same kind of the same temp range as a fall python in that you
know in that mid 80s kind of a range not too high of a hot spot they are fairly nocturnal but you
still want to give them a little bit of low light spectral level of uv-8 yep see there you go she's
kind of getting a little grumpy with me that very uh a nice little uva and uvb um especially like at
night um if you want to give them just a little bit during the during the evening and during the
mornings they'll absolutely come out they'll do a little bit of cryptic basking where they'll
poke out of their hides and they'll expose just like their heads it's really really cool
um the biggest thing about this is that i talked about those rock outcroppings these guys aren't
like the gray banding king snakes or the mexican viking snakes that i've done uh videos about the
build where i have like the stacks of rocks these guys are much larger heavier bodied uh snakes and
so if you want to build which i think would be really cool maybe one of these days i'll do it
i'll get like a nice six foot enclosure and i'll put in a really big rock uh like a little rock
outcropping or a little escarpment of these guys for them to perch on you have to secure
them together and secure it to your enclosure because they absolutely will hurt themselves
if you have that stacked up they will pull those down and sharp heavy rocks can absolutely injure
or kill your animal you don't want to do that anyway hope you guys enjoyed this video i am
super excited and super appreciative and glad i get to work with such a cool and amazing species
i'm very very excited and super happy that she's doing so well with me right now these guys are
an amazing species of snake i love to be able to share animals that we haven't been able to a lot
of people don't get to see very often so if you guys have any questions comments concerns please
let me know down below if you want to take a look at the playlist that i have of all of the species
spotlights that i have i have quite a few of them you can take a look at a lot of the ones that i
have as well as pretty soon i'm going to start beginning into a few more of the species that
a lot of people don't see as often if you want to go check that out it also helps my click-through
rate which allows youtube to let me know that like hey i exist and they'll suggest my content
a little bit more that is super appreciative um hope everyone is having a great day super look
forward to doing even more reptile content for everybody and we'll check you next time