Ute

2016

Jaguar

Coastal Carpet pythons can be beautiful in their own right but I went for one with the Jaguar trait because the look they have is next-level. Obviously I have to address the "wobble" concerns by stating that my Jag Coastal will roam around her cage without any signs of wobbling unless she starts poking her head upward and noses around near the ceiling. Then she's bound to get her head upside-down and wobble as she gets herself righted.

But I work from home in the same room where she is and her cage is very visible from my desk and I rarely see her have problems with her balance. Plus she's easy to handle and stunningly beautiful so I don't have any regrets about having her. In fact, I even plan to breed her some years because other people also want beautiful Jaguar coastals. I am assuming though that if I ever produce one with a severe equilibrium problem I will cull the snake.

Interestingly this paper was published in 2022 where the authors examined ball pythons of the Spider morph and determined that the equilibrium problems were caused by differences in the inner ear structure of the affected snakes. It is widely assumed that Coastal Carpet pythons with the Jaguar trait suffer because of similar conditions.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get more Coastals in the future simply because of space concerns. I'm not a big fan of striped snakes for some reason so the Tiger gene isn't appealing to me, but I would be interested in the standard, banded look that many Coastals have. We'll see.