Striped Coastal Carpet Pythons

I got River back in 2016 at a local reptile show. She was deep in shed at the show, but I got her for her pattern. She was sold to me as a Baylin tiger but since I couldn’t completely confirm that, I have decided to label her a striped coastal for that reason. Once I got her home, she shed and that is when I saw her color. She will fire up and down like a papuan carpet will do. She has a really light blueish/light slate gray color. This finding intrigued me to the point where I decided to see if I could reproduce her color.

I bred River in 2018 to Max and in 2019 to a Tiger Jag male that I have. Out of the two clutches, only one animal gave me any signs of being similar to River. That was the breeding with Max in 2018. If I’m completely honest, it was that he was striped and that’s all I went by. At the time of that animal hatching, I didn’t know what to look for at that time as far as color.

Once Trinidad hit about a year and half, he started gaining that overall light coloration that River has. At this time, I realized that I actually had a chance at reproducing this look. So, I raised Trinidad up to breeding size and paired him to River in 2021. The results were better than I could have hoped for. For one, I got a lot of striped animals. Second, almost all of the babies have the same coloring that Trinidad had at that stage. Which makes me hopeful for most of these animals will have that light coloration that Trinidad and River have.

As you can see from the two hatchlings above, there are a lot of similarities between the two. Color being the main similarity. This is a project I am excited to pursue since I started with just River over five years ago. I’ve been asked multiple times what I think River is. To answer honestly, I think she is a light colored coastal. But I want to do test breedings to see if its more than a polygenic trait. I plan on holding back a group from this 2021 clutch so I will have more answers as they gain size, and I can breed them.