Study On The Growth And Development Of Python Molurus Bivittatus Under The Condition Of Artificial Feeding

The Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) is regarded as the first-class animal under protection in China and as one of the endangered species by the world. It plays an important role in traditional Chinese medicine, national musical instruments and first-class leather products and so on. The enforcement of artificial breeding is an effective approach and important step to protect the endangered wild animals. To break through bottleneck in the breeding technology and raising management, this paper has made researches of weight, length, feeding environment temperature and humidity, feeding frequency, food intake, and mortality in the same period of3nests python hatchings (n=44), and different period of5groups python hatchings (n=250) for three years. The paper aims to reveal the growth-development feature and the main environmental temperature and humidity influence to the growth of the python under artificial feeding conditions. The main research results are as follows:1. There is a significant positive correlation between initial weight and length of python hatching (P<0.01) and a negative correlation with shell weight (P<0.05),but there is no correlation between initial weight and shell weight (P>0.05)2. Under same artificial feeding conditions, python hatching shelling out in different period has the following features:the earlier it shells out, the faster it grows.3. The growth-development of python shows a seasonal stepwise increase. Python grows quickly during the eating period from April to October, especially the highest absolute and relative growth ratio in June and August; the growth of Pythons slows down and even stops during the hibernated period from November to the coming March, especially the lowest absolute and relative growth ratio in January and February, and the phenomenon is zero growth and negative growth in python’s weight.4. There are significant difference between weight and length among5groups of different hatching period (P<0.05). After multiple comparisons of groups and establishing growth models and estimating parameter, the weight growth models of python can be described by the cubic curve equation Yw=142.542+19.428X+3.118X2-0.055X3(R2=0.955); the length growth models of python can be described by the quadratic curve equation YL=59.388+5.543X-0.063X2;(R2=0.977)5. It shows positive significant correlations among environment temperature, monthly weight increment and length increment, feeding frequency, food intake, feed conversion ratio(P<0.05), negative significant correlation between feed environment temperature and monthly mortality(P<0.05), especially feeding frequency is the highest correlations(r=0.854). There are negative significant correlations between environment humidity and monthly length increment, feeding frequency(P<0.05).There are negative significant correlations among feeding frequency, feed conversion ratio, environment temperature, monthly weight with monthly mortality(P<0.05), and positive significant correlation with age (P<0.05), especially feed conversion ratio and age are the strong correlations with monthly mortality(|r|>0.5).6. There is no significant difference between male pythons and female pythons of the weight of1.5to2.5years old (P>0.05). But it shows obvious and significant difference between male pythons and female pythons of the length of1.5to2.5years old (P<0.01).