ID confirmation / help

Thank you Sami.

Well, judging by what I've read in this topic, and others as well, I understand that it's difficult to determine where the males are from.
I just thought that I'll throw this one out there as well, in case it evokes some thoughts and might at least exclude some localities.
But like you and so many have pointed out, I understand it may be next to impossible.

I haven't done much about the climate changes. During the winter-time my apartment has really dry air, so I guess they've had a slightly drier season. I have offered water to drink / sprayed them 3-4 times per week, roughly.
Come spring/summer, I will spray them more heavily, at least for a period of time.

Speaking of wet and water... Heck, I've surprised one of the females twice drinking from a standing water base at the bottom during the night.
I suspect that another female might also use a water dish, since she drinks a lot less from droplets and spraying than my third female.

I have been keeping an eye in case they start to stress too much about each other's company. Normally I keep max. 2 of this species together with - hopefully - enough space, but with these 'mystery' individuals involved, I decided to take a chance. (With Stefan's approval of course, since 1/3 is his.)

Crossbreeding never even occurred to me, I've been under the impression that even different localities may not breed together.
My decision was based upon the thought Jörg mentioned, and that was the point of male showing interest in a female if he is the right species/locality.

As far as the exporter goes, I'd say he's reliable. This is just one of the 'speedbumps', if you will, that you'll get a different locality or a very similar species. Not necessarily in the case of Tropidolaemus alone.
As someone earlier pointed out, some exporters may have stock in their facilities, and maybe some will only look at the head-count when filling orders, or perhaps multiple specimens are housed together and similar specimens get mixed up...

Sure, I'll be happy to post notes in this thread should something interesting happen.

It's interesting to hear that they drink from the water bowl. Thats a great thing so that you don't have to worry that much about dehydration!

My apartment has also really dry air at the moment and it's a real pain in the A** but the spring will come soon. But then again it helps to cycle the year for some snakes.

About the crossbreeding. I also poder does there occur grossbreeding or not? I know one guy who's trying that but haven't hear any news about the issue. I quess it might be harder or needs some sort of tricks but I'll bet it could happen in some circumstance.

But yeah good luck and keep us informed.
This topic has been quite educating so all you pros. who knows alot about this sp. keep it coming.

Sami

Someone wrote that they have got succesful breedings after they got right localities housed together, and unintentionally offering the female a male from different locality didn´t even give hope. And as Christian wrote, the Sumatran female and this mystery one which looks like a male (the tail etc.) didn´t show any interest of eachother. Although sometimes they were on the same branch and feedings or sprayings didn´t bring any problems to me, i never saw any aggression towards eachother.

I changed my setup and nowadays i use water as groundmaterial. After that i´ve seen the supposed male swimming many times around, especially at nighttime. It´s been more active since that but i haven´t seen any change in the Sumatran female.

But i wish you Christian luck with those and i´m anxiously waiting for updates

Some words on the morphs:

We are working on a review of this complex. In this genus it is very difficult as you have to see more specimens than in other genera.
For a review on the genus Dendrelaphis 8 specimens from one locality are very fine for a review. But for Tropidolaemus you need much more due to the sexual dimorphism and the colour change with age. The colour is very important in this complex.

In a first step, Tropidolaemus wagleri was split in the three full species.
T. wagleri for Sumatra and West-Malaysia
T. philippensis for part of Mindanao
T. subannulatus for the rest

At the moment we are working on the T. subannulatus complex. The other species will change no more.

Here we have different species, but a careful examination has to be made to assign these populations to scientific names.
So for the moment the population were named as morphs in Terralog for example.

So some of them are different species, some are subspecies some are not valid, but this will take perhaps one more year to be fully resolved.

Meanwhile it is important for snake keepers to know the locality.
So a specimens from Kalimantan might be named:
T. subannulatus (immaculatus morph)
or the same
T. subannulatus (Kalimantan morph)

If they are only called subannulatus, you will have difficulties to assign them, when the new names are published.

Hope this helps

Gernot

Christian,
The problem with exporters the world over is that generally they are not the ones collecting the animals, as has been stated already they collate the collected individuals for export, I am sure they try to pass on accurate information but I doubt the true locality info is correct on every occasion.
This used to happen alot with GTP's, the exporters would name the localities depending on where the collectors local airport was or area of dispatch, but some locality specific animals were found close to each other and animals were mixed up and ended up misidentified to their true specific localities.