Hognose Sexing

So, I’ve gotten a LOT of mixed answers about the sex of one of the little hognoses I just picked up yesterday, so I decided to make a separate thread and ask about it separately from the other thread I had posted in.

I’m normally pretty good with sexing but this has caught me up pretty bad.

I picked up these two, a male snow and a male axanthic het snow:

Here are pictures of their tail:

Using @stewart_reptiles set of images for a reference, I am leaning more towards the axanthic being a female with a bit of a longer tail.

But alas, I have some who agree with me, and others that think she’s a male. What are your thoughts?

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That’s a tough one! A 'tweener tail for sure. I think I’m leaning female from those pics though.

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Definitely a tough one. I’m leaning to female since it tapers so quick. Some hoggies are ridiculous to sex when they’re smaller. I have one that was sold to me as a boy. He had a longish tail but it tapered quite quick and now I’m certain he is a she lol.

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At this size popping or probing when you aren’t experienced would be very risky, but I do know of a safe way to try and tell otherwise. Run your finger and press gently down the underside of their tail. If you feel what is called a “speed bump” (where the hemipenes end in the tail) then it is male. With snakes this small it might be hard to tell. I will post a picture of my male Arizona mountain king snake for length reference. Still a colubrid so it might work as an example.

The black stripe after the cloaca is where the “speed bump” is on him. Hope this helps!

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I’ve tried counting scales, but the one of your axanthic is still too dark. Generally speaking 37 or less would be female, 39 or more is male. If you hold onto that one and grow it up a bit, it’ll become much more obvious when you start to see “hips”.

I really do think that might be a longer tailed female. This one tricked dozens who said no questions asked, male. It’s 100% female :expressionless:

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I’ve popped ball pythons many times, though I don’t know if I’d want to try it with such a small snake.

I’ll definitely just hold onto them and see how they develop, maybe try popping when they are bigger and I feel more comfortable doing so.

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Did you ever figure it out for sure?

Unfortunately both are male, and even more unfortunate I don’t have Moon (axanthic het albino) anymore. Was gonna sell him to my sister and she somehow managed to kill the poor thing and to this day refuses to admit that she did. Hid him until we kicked her out and then had the audacity to leave him in the bottom of the dresser she was using.

It sucks, but it is what it is.

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