vigilant at this time of year with
Scrub Pythons. One day without
warning there was this animal laying
there with severe cuts. My good
friend the late John McLachlan once
told me that the injured Scrub
Pythons make a sort of crackling
noise like overstretched rope as
they move. I thought I would take
some photos of the animal and, sure
enough, as I drew closer with the
camera, it crawled away and made
exactly that sound!
Despite the severity of the wounds,
my animal healed without assis-
tance in less than six months.
Amazingly, you can now hardly see
any scarring, and I can’t remember
seeing any on older wild males,
although in theory this should be
evident.
inflicted a nasty wound on a female
during early mating. Again, I didn’t
witness the attack, and can only
speculate as to the exact cause. I
have talked to some other breeders;
Michael Cermak told me just the
other day that he had never
encountered this sort of behaviour,
but some other friends did recall an
episode when a male had grabbed a
female. I didn’t record how
many sloughs were involved,
but the injury healed pretty
well in just a few months.
Like the scrubby, once the
wound had started to dry up
a bit and pull together, it was
a very rapid recovery
process.
I have also experienced one instance
in which a male Green Tree Python
‘Despite the severity of the
wounds , you can now hardly
see any scarring .’
4.
5.
I believe there is a degree of natural
cannibalism in all monitors, and I
remember an article written by a
team of American scientists who
were studying Perenties in Western
Australia, which concluded that a
high percentage of juveniles were
inevitably gobbled up by adults. I
think sometimes this kind of
behaviour is opportunistic, while on