Taro was a surprise birthday present for me at a convention in February of 2019. I had always wanted a mystic potion ball python, and at the convention my husband placed one right into my hands.
Taro has been an interesting kind of surprise. First of all, she does not look like a mystic potion ball python. It’s because she’s part pinstripe, and I couldn’t find any “mystic potion pinstripe” ball pythons online when I searched. So, every stage of her growth has been interesting. We named her “Taro” because of the gray-purple patch on her head. She started out mostly white, and has gotten darker down the sides as she’s grown.
Taro is an awesome snake. Because we got her at a young age, she is very outgoing and lacks a lot of the reserved behavior we see in older females who have been kept in tubs. Sometimes, we will open the door for her and she will just climb right out to explore. However, Taro will climb the wall behind the snake rack if left to her own devices, so she doesn’t get to roam around for very long before someone scoops her up. She enjoys being carried around too though. She is a ton of fun.
Taro is the mother of a clutch of babies from July of 2023 with father Felix. Taro was positively alarmed by Felix in the beginning, even after meeting him outside her enclosure. He can be a bit pushy. However, after a day or so of Felix’s persistence (and with lots of anxious supervision) Taro became more tolerant of him and they ended up pairing successfully. With both parents’ eagerness to climb out of the enclosure to explore, we hope that they will be a very social clutch of babies.
