Yearling female Topaz

Over the last ten years we have bred many Tanami womas. Occassionally, we have produced unusual looking babies with well defined zig-zag stripes, a beautiful golden background colour and bright orange bellies. Initially we didn't realise the significance of these neonates and over the last decade one went to Sydney, one went to Melbourne, one stayed in Adelaide and a couple went to Queensland. As we keep in touch with most of our customers, many of whom are generous enough to send us photographs from time to time, we were able to watch these unusual Tanami womas develop. Gradually, it became apparent that they indeed were something special, winning praise from everyone that saw them.

As a result, we worked out the parentage of these rare individuals, focussed our breeding program and began to keep the few exceptional offspring that appeared from our annual breedings. Now, we have extablished a colony of 2 young adults and 3 sub-adults aged between 9 months and 20 months. We currently (October 2005) have our only adult female gravid and in the next couple of months hope to finally produce the first generation from parents which both exhibit these desirable traits.

As has become the custom in the USA and Europe when a new line of python is developed, we decided to give a name to this lovely new strain of woma. After much thought, we decided to call them Topaz Tanami Womas. According to the International Gemstone Association, "the Egyptians said that topaz was colored with the golden glow of the mighty sun god Ra. The Romans associated topaz with Jupiter, who also is the god of the sun. Topaz sometimes has the amber gold of fine cognac or the blush of a peach and all the beautiful warm browns and oranges in between". We thought this was a good match to the array of colours shown by this bloodline. We also decided to keep "Tanami" in the name because it decribes the geographic origin of this python's genetics.