Welcome to "The Niblet", two quirky exotic animal breeders sharing a taste of the farm life.

We hope you enjoy this issue, and welcome your thoughts and suggestions. If you have an idea for something you'd like to see here in the future just hit reply and let us know. .

All the best,

Ross Lasley	Amy Lasley

Locality Types Demystified

Without a doubt, the number one question we receive from our customers when inquiring about a Green Tree Python is "What do all those locality types mean?"

Nabire, Jayapura, Sorong, Wamena, Merauke, Biak, Aru... while they may be hard to pronounce, they're actually pretty easy to understand. Almost all Green Tree Pythons kept as pets have wild caught ancestors who came from Indonesia or Cape York, Australia, and the locality types are simply the names of towns or villages in these places. You can click on the map below to see the place in Indonesia corresponding to each of the common locality types.

To complicate things a bit, over the years, dedicated breeders have selected specimens for particular traits, usually unusual colors or patterns. This selective breeding eventually developed into "morphs". An example of a morph is "High Yellow" or "Mite Phase". These animals are usually not denoted by their locality type, as various locality types were often bred together to select for the trait the breeder wanted to enhance in the offspring. Green Tree Pythons morphs are often referred as "designer chondros" and frequently fetch prices from $3,000 to $20,000 USD.

There are also plenty of examples of mixed locality type Green Tree Pythons, for example Biak X Aru. These snakes have purebred parents, and are basically the equivalent of a mutt. Its a lot like breeding a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle to produce a Cockapoo. Mixed locality type Green Tree Pythons can be more or less expensive than their parents, based on the rarity of the colors and patterns they posses.