if anyone says yes or no their guessing because they dont know you or the animal.

the main factor in getting bit, is you. if u want an animal that cant do the damage a large retic can do, dont get a large retic.

there are "super dwarves" though, all the teeth, in a little package :2thumb:

rgds
ed

 

It will be down to the individual owner and the individual snake. I'm sure it is possible, but nothing is certain.

*Touch wood* none of our 3 have bitten so far. But I have seen the feeding response - lunge first, ask questions later - so I know we have to be careful (and not smell of rodent). And equally, I've learnt that one of ours gets particularly grumpy when shedding.

Being careful will help reduce your chances of getting bitten a lot. But there's still always a chance that something will trigger a bite.

If you're thinking of getting a retic - find someone/shop/etc who keeps them and ask to get some experience - volunteer to help clean them out. Then get hands on experience of going in and out of a retic viv and handling the retics. This will give you a much better idea of keeping them than if someone just hands you a retic to hold.

 

I dont really know a shop that has an adult retic near me but i really want one. I have owned Ball pythons for years now and i was thinking of getting one as i would get the retic from a hatchling and handle them a lot as they grow, i thought maybe that would give me enough experience as i would get used to handling them as it grows and i have done alot of research and also seen some painful looking bites lol but it looks like they pulled away when it bit them and they say they it was there fault because they wasn't paying attention to the snake.
Do you think it would be a good idea if i got a Retic or should i maybe get a Boa and then after a few years of experience with the Boa i could then take on a retic?

 

To become complacent particularly around a large boid, is asking for trouble.

One can 'worry' less around smaller animals and through experience you will learn to read your animals but I would never go as far as to say I trust a snake.

 

I've never handled a retic, but from talking to those who have kept them inform me that they are of a very different character to other snakes such as boa's or burms. Not that I really want to advocate it, but watch some of the snakebytes videos on you tube where they are having to deal with one of their large retics that is not wanting to co-operate and go into its holding box. You would need to ask yourself if you and your partner are willing to deal with that.

I've been keeping snakes for 30 + years, and whilst I love retics have never owned one as I don't have the spare box room that can be converted to a walk in viv to home the snake. I'm also 5' 5" tall and not that strong, so having to deal with any snake longer than 6' or 7' could put me at risk. This is why I've never had anything larger than a female boa that attained 8' in length.

We always suggest doing a lot of research and due diligence before getting a snake, and I personally think that this is more applicable when getting large snakes. If you have the space to locate an 8' x 4' x 4' vivarium, or possibly a spare room that can be converted for the long term, then by all means go ahead. If not then seriously consider your options.

To answer the OP's original question, any animal can bite. Even normal placid laid back animals can have their off days. Taking a bite from an adult royal can be painful enough if it tags you on a sensitive part like the wrist (talking from experience). I wouldn't want to take a hit from an adult boa, let alone a retic ! - Personally I believe it's more a case of when rather than if you get tagged.

 

In a word, no

 

I got a feeding bite from a 7ft bredli python last year and the bruising and resulting lump really shocked me. Personally I wouldn't keep a retic.

 

In my case it was a defensive bite - it felt like someone had hit the inside of my writs with a hammer. It bled a lot (as all bites do due to the saliva), and left six rows of deep pin pricks, but it was the bruising that went from yellow, to blue to black and then back to yellow again over the following two weeks that hurt.

Given the mass of a retics head, the increased size and power behind it, I wouldn't want to get tagged by a large retic.

 

Does this ring a bell:

Lovely boy/girl needs forever home through no fault of their own (for the first time in three years it has just done something that really frightened me). I am scaling down my collection/don't have the time to watch telly with him like he loves/moving to Australia on Friday (what have I done...). It is super-spangle molybdenum, 66% het for something. Bobby Gilbert line. Ultra dwarf, has topped out at 14 foot in 36 months. Asking £750. Come get a bargain (please, take it away someone).

£500. Lovely boy. Doesn't bite (hard).

Still available. £400. £300..., etc. 100 'rehoming' fee... Offer to a zoo. Dump in a park.

Don't do it mate. It was bad enough royal pythons being turned into budgies, but doing it to reticulate pythons will be a game-changer. They get much bigger by year 60 than they do at 3/4/5.

 

their clutch size will be their downfall.

rgds
ed

 

Agreed. It is eventually a very big animal, and only suitable in the long term for very dedicated keepers, whether amateur or professional. The numbers out there now, and the well-meaning but unwitting people wandering through pet shops and fancying a nice little retic, is frankly frightening. They should be DWA, as a sensible precaution. They are not as agile as a nile crocodile or a leopard, but in the wrong, unaccompanied, hands...

This is the species that will cause problems for every one that devotes time, money and knowledge into having a boa constrictor, royal python, or 9 ft diamond python (ahem) in their homes and lives.

 

some pictures from many years ago I remembered seeing from David Barker, a very experienced breeder.

reticulated python size - sSNAKESs : Reptile Forum

and a description of the incident from another site

Reading the caption to the photo, the bite was a quick "nip" that happened when a usually calm retic got spooked while having shed removed. The ensuing nip severed both a tendon running behind Dave's knee and an artery that emergency medical treatment to control the bleeding on.

I believe they've stopped working with retics now.

They are big powerful animals that a lot of people would love to keep but you really need to know what they are capable of.

 

dave barker is one of the most experienced keepers on the planet, if he told me chondros pooped gold, id believe him.

they dont work with giants anymore, they specialize in bloods and balls now.

rgds
ed

 

I may get a Retic as yes their bite does look quite bad but i think the pros of owning them outweighs the cons and i just think they are magnificent animals. If i was to get one i would get one that is a small size at the moment just so i get used to it as it grows. Any tips on owning them would be good but i have been doing research for a while now but personal experience and tips that have helped you with your Retic would be helpful and i would very much appreciate it.

 

I'm not sure if Steve D is still an active member, but drop him a PM. He featured in a long running thread back in 2009 and had a couple of retics both of which were 20+ feet in length

Reptile Forums - steve d's Albums

As you can see, Steve worked out, and looks to be a big bloke, something that is probably important when handling snakes that are in excess of 80 - 120 kg

 

I loved the phrase in Lougbugs link.
"Do you have an enclosure that can cope with a 200lb turd". PMSL!

 

I do have the room for a retic and i can also build a large vivarium for it and even if i couldn't i know a few reptile shops that built my snake racks and i also know that they could build it for me. And also i know there are exotic vets around the uk but to double check i might phone around some and see if they could see large snakes if i ever had a problem with the snake. And i would handle the snake with respect and always be careful when doing so. And also i have seen a few people talking about hook training where they touch the snake with the hook to let it know that it is not being fed, does this actually work.

 

just keep in mind, retics are responsible for human deaths, an adult mainland is completely capable of taking ur life, or a family member should it escape, or an incident occurred.

if i could give one tip it would be to not use glass for doors, use acrylic panels instead since ur going the cage route but..

these huge retics really should not be housed in cages, a cage to a retic that size is nothing but a holding box where it sits in its own faeces, they get fat, they get lazy. when ur 16-18ft long and ur cage is only 8ft long, and only 4ft wide, ur a systemic disease waiting to happen, ur certainly not going to be breaking any longevity records housed like that

they need a room converted to a cage.

rgds
ed

 

This makes me laugh....

The average bath hols around 180 litres up to the overflow, and measures 1700mm x 700mm wide and around 600mm deep.... even if that was doubled it would still be cramped

 

Exactly. OP, look at the size of the serpents in Malc's posts. I'd guess they are less than 10 year old animals? Maybe 16-18 ft? In extremis, they have another 10ft in them if allowed to live a long, happy life. And it seems they are kept by a chap that is/was(?) committed. But they don't even fit in the fella's downstairs hallway! Would you keep a 3ft royal in a pencil case? (Hmmm..., ok, I know). If a bathtub is arguably cruel as a water bowl for a species that lives in humid tropical environments... Adult retics need an 8' x 3' x 3' viv. Yeah, right.

But your original question was could you keep one without ever getting bitten? Tendons and arteries aside, a quick 'piss off, leave me alone' blood-fest nip would be the least of your worries. What about when it is convinced your arm is part of a struggling monkey? Or you are draping it over your shoulder like in those pics, it thinks it is about to slip and readjusts, you freak out, it hangs on tighter, you freak out more...

If you want an animal that could kill you on the one day in 20 years when you let your guard down or do something careless, it's you're prerogative. But it could also kill your dog/child/mama. And you should morally be prepared to keep it for its natural life. No trying to flog the lovely boy when you get a new girlfriend, move, get bored etc. Or at least put the cash aside to have it euthanised. I know they are awe-inspiring animals, but there are plenty of other big-ish impressive snakes that you could try your hand at.

Make a good decision.

 

Retics are stunning animals, both as wild types and their many morphs.
What has been missed is that while mainlands do get huge, there are dwarfs (around 9 - 12 feet maximum) and super dwarfs, which if in their pure form grow no more than 6 feet.
Still impressive but a sensible and manageable size.

 

Retics are stunning animals, both as wild types and their many morphs.

What has been missed is that while mainlands do get huge, there are dwarfs (around 9 - 12 feet maximum) and super dwarfs, which if in their pure form grow no more than 6 feet.

Still impressive but a sensible and manageable size.

Excellent point as so far I've found my SD Retic to behave exactly like the full sized ones with all the plusses and minuses but in a 6 or 7' package ..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

Picture heaven ....

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

What a stunning snake!

 

Well I think so ( it's not mine sadly - I'm after a SD version of it lol )


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

Well I think so ( it's not mine sadly - I'm after a SD version of it lol )


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Get one for me too!
That would seriously tempt me back to owning snakes.:2thumb:

 

I have been looking at dwarf Retics but i still do want a big snake. How Big on average would a female dwarf retic get or does it depend on the parents and genes?

 

I have been looking at dwarf Retics but i still do want a big snake. How Big on average would a female dwarf retic get or does it depend on the parents and genes?

I think you've answered your own question.

I'm no expert in genetics, but I don't think anyone can predict how large anything will grow. I'm of average build and height, around 5'5", 5'6", as is my wife. Our fifteen year old daughter is taller than both of us, as is my twenty-three year old son. There is no such prediction that just because the adults are of a certain size, the offspring will be the same or smaller.

You can also get throwbacks, my parents were also around 5'4" - 5'6", yet my brother has always been around the 6' mark, which apparently must come from my grandparents who were both tall.

I know it's bending the rules slightly, but I found this which may give you some idea as to sizes of SD retics https://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?206082-Super-Dwarf-Reticulated-Python-Care-and-Information However I would like to draw your attention to the last paragraph

Even though these snakes are in a smaller package, always show them great respect as their teeth are still very much a threat to your skin and future blood donations. These snakes are fast, intelligent, and very strong. A 12’ 50% SD female, will be just as strong as a 12’ mainland, and can still pose a real threat to your life, should you make a stupid feeding error (SFE).

I know you are looking for a large snake, but given the advice from those who have kept them, and the concerns over enclosures etc maybe you should reconsider. There have been other suggestions for snakes in the 6' - 9' size that would be just as challenging, but without as many risks. Trust me, I still get a kick out of handling my 6' male boa... and they are less intelligent and active than a retic.

 

I just googled reticulated python bite and there are some pretty horrendous looking bites. I just can’t understand why someone would want an animal like that unless they have the expert experiencing of keeping something potentially very dangerous.

If it got out and killed someone are you liable??

 

Don't know about the first part, I suppose it could be cause it is dangerous, like people with motorbikes?

But in your second part, yes they will be liable if the animal got out due to the owners neglience. I.e. lost during handling (don't know how?)/left the door open/enclosure wasn't suitable. But if someone went into the enclosure without the owners permission then no. I am not a lawyer tho!

Cheers,
TM

 

time for a ramble

its long been known u can alter adult retic size by simple caloric restriction, it does physically stunt them throughout adulthood, a reversal of this calorie restriction does not restart the lost growth rate of youth, but they do get obese quicker, their metabolism after a certain age switches from growth/survival to reproduction, for which there is a minimum. the difference between boids and colubrids is that often a caloric deficient female colubrid will still reproduce, often to their detriment, but a similarly deficient female boid often wont even ovulate. but calories are not the only element for minimum ovulation in boids, there is a minimum age for successful ovulation in some boids, past outward physical size, some boids require 5yrs of growth regardless of size to ovulate, bredls bismarks are known to do this regularly, despite being very good captive feeders.

uv has no impact on growth rate or maximal length in retics (on health however... ) some of the largest captives never had any light except indirect room light, their undoing was not lack of uv, it was abundance of calories. mainland retics though genetically large are not capable of withstanding sustained excess calories in captivity any better than any other large captive animal. one of the leading causes of death in captive apes for example is heart disease.

there are really only two factors that affect the adult size of captive retics, calories and parent origin (and the purity of that origin), the large range of retics has led to vastly different adult sizes, and therefore reproductive sizes.

there is far more variability in so called dwarves and super dwarves, because captive ones unless pure are for want of a better term unstable in the adult size u can expect, simply because of wild imports from unknown, unnamed, renamed, bogus locales that have created lines that are quantified by percentage as a parentage, this leads to significant variation not seen in pure locales, there may be variation in the sex of the locale used also, this could mean males are able to pass on their smaller adult breedable size whereas females are capable of passing on their larger attained size (given sexual dismorphics), so the gender used in the locale cross could be a deciding factor.

pure small locales breed true, their genes are in large part their restriction but pure cb f2 for example will often exceed the wild originator, so their genetics are not an unbreakable lock in rgds to size. one of the reasons for a populations adult size is available calories, a reduction leads to a necessary smaller breedable size or that population will fail, the retics that rafted to insular locales must have included gravid females otherwise mainland adults would have had great difficulty in establishing a foothold.

calories will trump genes in retics, every-time, a locale may reach 8ft max but calories will make a cbb 10ft of that locale in subsequent generations. im not sure if retics are unusually malleable in this regards, i doubt it, i think its in part due to their large mass, id guess one main difference between captive and wild retics is how the calories are used in their growth, bone density comparison in wild vs cb im sure would be interesting, in part because of the obvious mechanics of environment but also because in caloric excess tissue can outpace the skeletal system, iv seen this in bluetongues for instance. obviously its not only a question of calories, excess calcium settles in the tissues, would access to uv prevent this in captive retics. like bone density the postmortem comparison of wc and cb heart arterys etc would likely reveal cause of death in large adult retics.

a retics heart will expand by about 40% after a large meal, the metabolism goes into extreme over drive, their blood essentially gets saturated in fatty acids, their intestines swell from increased blood supply, if captivity produces systemic disease (it does) its often this process that exposes the weak link. this rapid change after feeding is supposed to be, in evolutionary terms, intermittent not consistent, so what is the affect of consistent excess fatty acids being pumped thru a 3 chambered heart designed for less of these extreme metabolic events, in a vascular system that has other oddity's, the blood from the tail for example will pass thru the kidneys before re-entering circulation, so injections sites for meds should not be in the tail, the renal system will effect their distribution.

in captivity retics get *insert number* x's the amount of calories a wild retic does, inc and especially in the first 5 important growth years, and they expend a tiny fraction of the energy to acquire it compared to a wild retic, and we compound that by putting them in a 8ft box, and expect them to live long healthy lives....

rgds
ed

 

Hi ed, no worries about the ramble. It is an interesting read, I am in no way shape or form an expert on retics, so I may have generalised more then I should have done. But I am curious if there are scientific studies with suitable rigor that shows UV has no impact or is it just anedoctal evidence + studies with limited sample sizes? Even though thinking about it surely the most likely thing would be as you say additional UV will help promote good bone structure in the snakes therefore a larger snake with supplemented calcium + UV light will be healither and less prone to certain health ailments?

The topic about sexual polymorphism (not dimorphism due to length not being an on/off thing (sorry me be pedantic :whistling2), it is commonly seen that females are the larger sex and I believe most people attribute this to breeding purposes. This therefore suggests the genes that effect the snakes length can be located either partly or all within the sexual chromosomes, where instead of the males ZZ, females have ZW. And where the difference between the Z chromosome and the W chromosome could hold the key for size difference? Then again it is also very unlikely that it is just one gene at work here due to the scale of things.

I think having offspring out growing the parents animals is a common thing across the animal kingdom, I can't think off the top of my head if there are ones that are solely restricted to genetic factors. But when dealing with wild animals, are we always 100% of what genetics we are getting with the parents. However lets say you breed a stunted full size retic to a dwarf retic, then it is very likely to be able out grow both given the correct envrionmental conditions, so I think you will still have to look at parentage as a factor even though it may not be a major one?

I wonder if it is something more then just calories, as lets use humans as an analogy, more calories you provide with less expenditure then you get fatter not taller. But maybe it is something like we are dealing with the ratios between proteins:fats:calcium, where the proteins will help growth, calcium for bone density and fats for well fat? I'd be curious to find more about this.

You learn something new everyday, I had never thought it would work like that!

I think you last point is an important one, wild retics are likely to get more excerise then captive individuals. And yet people will still feed them a normal sized diet, and wonder why people have health issues in their snakes. It is the same with humans, to keep in tip top conditions you need to control your diet and your excerise! Also we need to invent a hamster wheel or something for retics!

Cheers,
TM

 

Some very interesting points raised Ed. In comparing a captive animal with the same animal in the wild I think you have to factor in parasites too. Chances are that most wild animals carry some parasite, probably worms of some description, and I wonder if these could have an impact on their size, probably more in girth than length?

I think you hit the nail on the head regarding eating high fat / protean diet and not having the space to exercise. Personally whilst I know that some members let their large snakes out for a roam around the room on a daily basis, which is better than those who keep the snake in cramped conditions, but I still feel that it's not the same as the freedom a wild snake will have to roam and or climb. This is one reason I feed every fortnight. Even though I feel my enclosures are large enough to give them the range of movement (each viv is longer than the snake it contains), I'm conscious that don't get the exercise they would have in the wild so ensure that their food is adjusted accordingly

 

off topic sort off, re parasites the north korean soldier who recently crossed the dmz (and got shot several times) was infested with worms, the biggest 11cm i think. they still use a fertiliser there called night soil, human poop. south koreans obviously carry no such burdens normally.

re snake parasites there is a difference between wild and captive infections, wild infections are self limiting i suppose u could put it, if the host dies often so do the parasites, they need opportunity's for secondary infections (tapeworms etc for this post) so its in the parasites own interest not to harm their host severely, one exception to this is ticks/mites, they can go to town as they drop off and wait for the next unlucky sod. in captivity though the same parasite load can become unsustainable, the stress has the effect of almost causing a parasite population boom, a hormone or something they pick up on maybe, giving them the idea that their hosts days are numbered and they multiply in the hopes of increasing their secondary infection survival chances i think.

and sometime if u treat such a huge burden they become toxic just from the sheer volume of dead and dying parasites, which is why wc is often not treated straight away for parasites, till their settled and not extremely stressed (i had a wc ball pass a large tapeworm in its water bowl once, it was still moving and alive)

but re wc+ parasites and healthy cb adults i think it sorta evens out, wc have ideal conditions ideal food type but parasites stealing a percentage of their nutrition but cb have no such burdens but the excesses and deficiency's of a captive life, so balanced sorta maybe? i think wc attain these lengths from longevity and cb from food intake, i do think a wild giant retic is much older than a captive giant retic of similar size.

rgds
ed
ps if i remember right the transpecos rat has its very own tick species, found on no other, they must feel so special to be drained of their blood by such a committed tick

 

Was just having a browse through YouTube and found this, that’s one big snake but surely messing with it when it’s getting ready to lay eggs isn’t a good thing?

Doesn’t look like a happy snake :-(

https://youtu.be/5JCW5lEI1b4

 

no apologies necessary : victory:

regarding anecdotal in this case, i would agree and would prefer there was an alternative which there unfortunately isn't but retic breeding simply due to clutch size has an advantage, u get a large sample simply from siblings retained for recessive mutants for example, so though anecdotal it is not small in sample size and has the advantage of limited gene pool variation for mutations. the variation on the spectrum obviously is care, but retic keepers are somewhat unusual in that they are pretty uniform in this respect, due to the captive mechanics of maintaining an animal the size of a retic, ur choices and options are limited, and this has led to a uniformity in private captive care for this species. the same can be said for burms murinus and probably sebae.

re uv and females i would say no to it just possibly benefiting them, in captivity for boids if theres going to be issues with something like uv (or temps, or food, or heat) its before reproductive age, ie simply getting them to reproductive age is the issue not the sex of the specimen. if there was one species i would say deserves a caveat it would be boelens females of reproductive age, especially gravid females, given their unique habitat and evolution, if there was a need differential based on sex it would be them.

I am being lazy with my formatting at the moment so excuse the odd reading! My own particular issue with anedoctal evidence is the fact without exploring all the factors you cannot conclusively prove causation, correlation on the other hand is very easy and can be seen. I feel it is likely from the evidence that UV light isn't going to be a major factor in getting to the extreme sizes, however it could help produce healthier individuals? Isn't it commonly seen that most female boids show the last sentence?

actually in boids the opposite is the norm, the periods of fasting are periods of metabolic stability, boids though not unique in this ability have perfected the famine feast cycle better than virtually any other genus. a wild c.aspera may only eat 6-8 times per year but that is their evolutionary template, in captivity given the option they will eat more but not to the extent that they consume based on opportunity rather than need like many other species. another example would be bloods, they have a template like aspera but on a larger scale. if there is a failure in the captive cycle i would guess its in the way excess calories are stored as fat. the first thing u would notice in a retic during post mortem is the huge abundance of fat stores they carry, and i do wonder if these fats stores are simply under utilized, their job is to get thru lean times and produce clutches, only the latter happens in captivity, leading to an imbalance, a balance that could be critical, so instead of the evolutionary 100% utilization of these stores, they are continually topped up and continually under utilized, by lack of prey drought and increased feeding to make up for a recently laid clutch, so season after season the imbalance grows till critical mass and system failure.

I do wonder what causes boids to have these issues exactly, I would imagine it is something to do with the facts the if food is inconsistently coming in, therefore they have to extract everything they can from each meal (causing the heart issues you mentioned, and probably other issues), but when they are in extended periods of fasting, like probably not a few weeks, extending a month or more? Whether this fasting is causing additional stresses on each of the organs, which then if this happens regularly then can cause failures? To be honest your first comment is common sense and yet it often looked over...a bad diet going into your snake and lack of excerise isn't good!

i would say the difference is caused by the differing expectations of the sexes,
a male boid only has to reach reproductive age mate and his genes are passed on, so his number of prey to catch is x his number of hours of efficient heat is x, but the female not only has to reach a larger longer reproductive age, but she has to carry with that enough excess energy to fuel either a long gestation of embryos or the growth of a clutch of eggs. so in a male there is a point where evolutionary speaking he is disposable but that point is much much later on for the female in boids given the investment of a clutch or litter. you only have to look at kenyan sand boas to see that ratio in physical form, a male kenyan adult can be the size of a 12mth old female and successfully pass on his genes. a 6mth old male ball can reproduce, whereas females are usually 36mths. there are two main methods boids have chosen, large amounts of small babies or small amounts of large babies (proportionally), for egg laying species there is the retic with regular clutches not aberrant clutches on record of 50+ viable eggs, and there is perthensis with clutches as small as two, but the size of neonates in proportional comparison to the adult female is larger for perthensis. the livebearers have an equally diverse path, there are rosy boas with litters of around 4 and there are boa constrictors with as high as i *think* 90+ for pete kahls original img boa, but again the rosys boas are larger proportionally (not physically) given the size of the mother.

other species in which the differing evolutionary expectations of the sexes is obvious is paulsoni and carinata, the males are tiny in comparison, so much so that when first imported the animals where extremely female heavy, to the point it was thought that males were rare, possibly even TSD like leos etc, but what actually was happening was rather funny, the field collectors, thinking they would get paid more if they only caught larger specimens where leaving most of the smaller specimens alone, they were leaving all the males

This issue with saying parentage will determine the offspring size is there are a lot of in direct factors at play, a lot that aren't determined by genetics. As I said before there isn't one gene that will make a snake grow to a set length, however the exact way it works isn't actually known so I am going to try an infer to the best of my ability. However the best way to explain that a series of genes will allow the production of differing levels of growth hormones under optimal conditions, and thus meaning a pair of two larger snakes are more likely have the genetic code that produces more growth hormone, thus are more likely to grow more. A couple of things that should be noted, is that diseases/parasites/poor diet can actually stop or reduce the hormone production, meaning a reduced growth rate, but also if the genetic code doesn't produce the hormones for the full length of the main growth time that you can get stunted growth.

I wonder what exactly causes the difference between the two sexes in boids.

i do wonder if the different locales have differing reproductive ages, given their different minimum reproductive sizes, but do they take equal amounts of time to reach there, is the access to comparative prey size and amount the equalizing factor, do the smaller forms have a longer lifespan from a stretched out reproductive cycle due to the very pressures that dwarfed them in the first place...

The question of parasites and disease is a curious one on how much of an impact there is on the growth rates cause simply but there are more parasititc species then we can shake a stick at, and I think it would take a long time to study the major groups and how they react with each other. However you can imagine the parasites that life directly off the hosts food/body will cause some damage, however will it significantly cause a reduction in growth. It is very unlikely as Ed says, to be considered a "good" parasite that the parasite will not kill off the host before it has had a chance of spreading. If it kills off the host before it can spread the parasite could be considered a biological failure. I have a suspiscion that diseases would have a bigger impact then parasites (obviously some diseases can come from parasites) on growth rates of the snakes. It is probably very likely that you are correct with captive animals being likely to attain the wild giant sizes at a much younger age due to the fact keepers give more food then they would encounter in the wild.

I wonder if there are any studies on the wild diets of retics, and how different they are to their captive counterparts.

its been a pleasure chatting : victory:
rgds
ed

 

Really interesting observations and information being presented within this thread.

I think many of the principles can / should be applied to virtually every other species being kept in captivity, not just Reticulated Pythons.