Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pimbura (talk | contribs) at 18:30, 15 December 2011 (→Colossus). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Hello, and welcome to Misplaced Pages. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Misplaced Pages, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Aparallactus jacksonii, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Benzband (talk) 17:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Try template:convert to show a measurement in both inches and centimeters! Thanks for your contributions! Jim1138 (talk) 00:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

November 2011

Welcome to Misplaced Pages. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Misplaced Pages, at least one of your recent edits, such as the edit you made to Children's python has been reverted, as it appears to be unconstructive. Use the sandbox for testing; if you believe the edit was constructive, ensure that you provide an informative edit summary. You may also wish to read the introduction to editing. Thank you. Template:Z84Igoldste (talk) 12:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Logging in

Thanks for the excellent work with the reptile articles. Do consider registering and logging in - even if with a pseudonym. You will find it useful. Shyamal (talk) 03:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Colossus

Dear IP! Are you the one who made the following edit ] ? I was researching like crazy for the source of origin of this information but I had no success. Can you tell me the source of your text? I would love to expand the German article http://de.wikipedia.org/Colossus_(Netzpython) with this information. Kind regards, --Pimbura (talk) 21:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Please, even a little hint would help me a lot! --Pimbura (talk) 18:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Pimbura: Since you don't have a talk page, I'm answering you here. I hope you see this.

I got the information about Colossus from the Section of Amphibians and Reptiles, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, USA.

Unfortunately, at the present time the museum has no curator of herpetology. However, the job opening was posted recently, and perhaps there may be someone soon with whom you may correspond. Former curators M. Graham Netting, Neil D. Richmond, and C.J. "Jack" Mcoy have all passed on to the happy herping grounds, as has Bill Allen, who was the head reptile keeper at the Highland Park Zoo. Incidentally, I was never able to pin down the publication by Bill Allen and Barton which contains all the measurements which included a "fudge factor". Hope this is of some help to you. I wish you all the best with your work on the German language article. Sincerely, 96.236.213.217 (talk) 23:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks a million for your reply!! I have already collected two publications about Colossus:

• Barton, A. and W. B. Allen, Jr. 1961. Observations of the feeding, shedding and gowth of captive snakes (Boidae). Zoologica, 46(2):83-87.
• Gerald L. Wood: The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats 1972, page 186

In this Guinness Book they published the following information:

Shortly before her death the length of this snake was believed to have been in excess of 30 ft, but this measurement was not borne out by posthumous examination. In a letter to the author dated 23rd April 1966, William B. Allen, Jr., Curator of Reptiles at Highland Park Zoo, wrote: "The snake was measured after its death but it was fairly hard to get a good measurement. It was stiffened up and vertebrae had pulled together shrinking the snake. We had a measurement of over 24 feet, hut this being put on the same ratio as a smaller snake dying and shrinking , we could add the difference that would have given us our 28 feet alive. . . . It was not weighed because of its stiffened condition, but it weighed over 200 lbs., as it took several men all they could do to move it, by dragging and pulling.“ An autopsy revealed that several segments of the vertebrae were eaten almost completely through, along with several rib sections, by reptilian tuberculosis, and it was this factor, along with a lung infection and possibly old age, that contributed to this snake's death.

Allen explains the size differences due to health problems. In contrast to this your text speaks about a "fudge factor". After reading this, would you agree with Allen or does it still not fit with the information the curators of the Carnegie Museum gave to you? Did they doubt the 24 ft or the shrinking due to this reptile tuberculosis from about 28 ft to this size?

By the way: I have scanned both publications above. If you are interested, I could mail you them... I would be very intersted to hear if you would change your mind after reading them...

Best wishes from Switzerland, --Pimbura (talk) 23:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think Bill Allen, in his letter to Mr. Wood, was just trying to do "damage control" because he was embarrassed by the fact that Colossus was so much shorter in death than he had reported. It was Neil Richmond's opinion that 24 feet was her length both when she was alive and when she was dead. Tuberculosis might have been the cause of Colossus's death, but tuberculosis didn't cause her to shrink four feet. I have to agree with Richmond. I've personally prepared thousands of herpetological specimens over more than fifty years, including other large pythons, boas, and anacondas, and have not observed any shrinkage at death. Invertebrates such as sea cucumbers or jellyfish may shrink, but not a snake.

It should be understood that Allen wasn't trying to falsify the data, but was acting in good faith. When he found that he was unable to completely extend the live snake, he estimated how much he should add to yield an accurate measurement. As it turned out, he overestimated.

Thanks for the offer of the reprints, but I don't think I would change my mind after reading them.

I was in Switzerland only briefly in 1978. My first impression was that the Swiss are helpful and friendly. Thank you for reaffirming my impression. Regards, 96.236.213.217 (talk) 02:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this statement! All of your explanations seem totally plausible to me. I’m so lucky to have met somebody with such a lot of experience - I admire the work of taxidermists! Now I’m brooding over a good referencing of your information. You seem to be very familiar with the Carnegie Museum and its former curators. Do you think the exact measurements of the inspected carcass are written down and still deposited at the museum? Or even better did this museum once made a publication with the accurate measurements of this python? Do you know if the skull and other parts of the skeleton are on display, could be photographed and probably include a description of the evaluated length? Unfortunately I’m not allowed to edit the German wiki without good references. But I think the world should have the right to know that there is no proof for reticulated pythons of 28 ft. And even a good documented length of a 24 ft specimen could be “world record”. During my research, I came to the impression that there are a hand full of reticulated pythons in captivity that were told to have reached a length of more than 23 ft - but none of them seems scientifically proven. What do you think can I expect from the Carnegie Museum? Kind regards, --Pimbura (talk) 08:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

By the way: that was the way Barton&Allen 1961 tried to measure Colossus (page 86):

Perhaps our most accurate size data for this specimen were obtained on February 24, 1954, when it was found to weigh 295 pounds. The junior autor noted the weight in his daily journal on that date and stated: "This was shortly after its winter fast of 4 1/2 months. The snake was then returned to its transfer cage. I opened the transfer door, which is 14 x 18 inches, and the python began to crawl back into its main cage. By placing a measuring tape on its back and working along hand over hand so that it would not slip, I got a measurement of 27 feet, two inches, which I believe will be as acurate a measurement as we shall get until the snake dies." --Pimbura (talk) 08:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment, but I'm not a taxidermist. I didn't mount specimens for exhibit. I prepared them as study specimens to be added to the museum's vast research collections. For snakes this usually involved injecting them with formaldehyde and coiling them so that they could be stored in jars on shelves. Specimens too large to fit in a jar were usually prepared as study skeletons. A snake was skinned, eviscerated, and allowed to air dry. Then the carcass was placed in a box, which required that large snakes be broken into several pieces to fit. Next the box was placed in the "bug house", a colony of dermestid beetles. After a few months, all the flesh had been eaten, and only the skeleton remained.

Every specimen is catalogued and receives a catalogue number, e.g., "CM 38755". During the 1960s, before computers, the data for each specimen were recorded in two ways: in numerical order on catalog pages, which were bound into books; and also on 3 inch x 5 inch catalog cards, which were arranged by species in drawers, like the "card catalog" of a library. There should still be a card in the Python reticulatus drawer that has written at the bottom, either typed or in Richmond's handwriting, a note explaining that this specimen is "Colossus" and including a measurement.

Neither the skull nor any parts of the skeleton are on display. They should be in an archival quality cardboard box, in a wooden cabinet, in the basement of the museum.

As far as I know, the postmortem measurements were never published in any scientific journal. This doesn't suprise me though, because there are three different groups of herpetologists: museum scientists, zoo keepers, and reptile breeders. Museum scientists are interested mostly in taxonomy and systematics, and not so much in record sizes.

Here's what happened to the hide of Colossus. During the 1960s Carnegie Museum had another facility at Meridian, Pennsylvania, several miles north of Pittsburgh, where most of the taxidermy work was done. At this time the head taxidermist was Otto Epping. Epping told Richmond that there were some new techniques for tanning snake hides, and Richmond gave the hide of Colossus to Epping. Its not clear whether Epping attempted the tanning himself, or whether he sent the hide to yet another lab for the process. What is clear is that the hide disappeared. It might have dissolved in a vat of strong chemicals, it might have been stolen and sold, or it might have simply been lost. In any case it was never seen again. Of course even if the hide were still extant, it wouldn't be of much use in establishing the snake's length because hides can be stretched as much as 50 per cent.

In response to your question about what you can expect from Carnegie Museum, I'm afraid that the short answer is "not much". There hasn't been a curator in the Section of Amphibians and Reptiles for over a decade. When I recently retired from 26 years with the US Postal Service, I inquired about the possibility of my curating the study collection as a volunteer, i.e., gratis. I was told that they would rather not do anything with the collection until they hire a curator.

I understand your problem with providing a reference for the German WP article. I struggled with the same dilemna when I made that edit.

Incidentally, you may find this link interesting. http://www.carnegiemnh.org/herps/staff.html

Thank you for all this new information - that is very kind of you! In this case I have to ask Mr. Rogers (Collection Manager) for the catalogue number of Colossus, a copy of its card (showing its measurements) and a picture of the opened drawer. The later could give a great picture for the article and also would prove or disprove the supposed vertebral damages. Do you think Mr. Rogers will take me seriously or would you have much more influence on him? With the catalogue number and these evidences, we would almost have a reference like for a rare book stored in a library… Greetings, --Pimbura (talk) 13:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Your plan sounds like a good one to me. I would suggest that you contact Rogers directly, and I can only hope that he take your inquiry seriously. I doubt that I would have any influence on him, as I don't think that he and I have ever met. Also, considering the museum's response to my offer to do volunteer work, he may already consider me to be a "pain in the ass". So it may be better to not mention me in your letter. I hope that he is not too busy managing the other vertebrate collections (birds and mammals) to be able to take the time to honor your request. In which case, you may have to wait until the position of curator is filled, and then try again. Good luck!

Okay, I'll try my best... Thanks for all your previous help! --Pimbura (talk) 14:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Greetings from Switzerland, I have pleasant news but I don't want to discuss them in public at the moment... Please send me an e-mail to colossus <at> gmx.ch . Regards,--Pimbura (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

This is the discussion page for an IP user, identified by the user's IP address. Many IP addresses change periodically, and are often shared by several users. If you are an IP user, you may create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other IP users. Registering also hides your IP address. (WHOIS  Geolocate  Proxy Checker Current blocks XTools Global contributions) (RIRs: Africa America Asia-Pacific Europe Latin America/Caribbean)