What's your oldest snake?

Thank you for your answer… that makes sence. I got the impression from posts on youtube from major american breeders started breeding ball pythons more than 20 years ago but I forgot about the wild caught part in it.

Some of the major breeders have been breeding ball pythons that long. Bob Clark produced albinos in 1992. NERD introduced pastels (or “jungle pastels” as they were called originally) in '97. I remember when I first saw one, featured on the cover of Reptiles magazine, which was one of the main sources of reptile breeder news before the internet really took off. VPI proved out clowns in '99. I think those were the first 3 morphs. But quantities were very limited for a long time, demand was high, and so the snakes themselves were quite expensive and hard to come by for a while.

My longest lived was a female ball I rescued as a hatchling. She was extremely emaciated, dehydrated, and had pneumonia. I went all in and got her healthy, and she grew up and lived for 16 years. Unfortunately, every clutch she laid either I didn’t know she was working on, or there were incubator problems. So I never got babies from my dear Octavia. She died while gravid, and I really don’t know why.

I did have a crested gecko that apparently made it into his 20s when he died. I adopted him from my vet and had him for 12 years or so. She adopted him when he was like 12 or so. So he was like 24, give or take.

With proper care, they can live a long time.

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