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ATB Probing Issues

6K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  Barney_M 
#1 ·
A couple years ago, I bought a pair of Amazon Tree Boas.

The male was proven and the female was a 3 year old virgin. She had been apparently sexed twice (probed) and I did not sex her myself. The person I got her from is someone I know and trust, and the person who did the sexing if someone I know of and he is an expert with 20 years of experience.

The male has wrapped the female on several occasions this month.

I recently traded them to another breeder and he sexed the female as a male. He indicated that he used the proper size of probe, did not perforate any tissue, and probed 12-15 scales deep on both sides. The person who probed the snake a male is someone with a lot of experience with Tree Boas (mostly Emeralds) and lots of other snakes. The snake is in shed, but I doubt that makes any difference.

Needless to say, I was quite surprised. Is there anything that can cause a snake to probe shallow as a younger snake and deeper as an older snake? Which reading is likely to be false?
 
#7 ·
Thanks for the diagram!

On a related note, I have read the following:

the determination made by a small probe is uncertain, as a small probe may pass relatively deep into the hemipenial homologs of a female.

Is there any basis in truth in this? How likely is it to occur? I doubt that to be the case here, but it would be interesting to know.
 
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