By Michael Pennell
For those new to the hobby or new to the Morelia genus, the coastal carpet python is one of the largest subspecies of the carpet python family. Coastals range in color according to locale with those from the north having more gray and black in the pattern to those from the central region that are more earth-toned and brown and to those from the southern extent showing more red.
So a brief history on the origins of the MPenn line. I acquired a trio of adults from my friend, Rick Rollings, in 2000. He bought them directly from VPI. All three animals had the typical coastal banding. One female was right at the 10 foot mark and dark with heavy banding. The smaller female was close to 8.5 feet and it is her and the male that are the founders of the MPenn line as we know it today. I first bred them in 2002 and produced a clutch of 19 eggs with all 19 hatching. I chose to maternally incubate the clutch and hatched several striped animals much to my surprise.
I was very active on the Moreliapythons forum at the time and became good friends with Nick Mutton. He was looking for more genetic diversity to add to his coastal group. At the time, it was rare to find any pure specimens with any certainty. He was interested in what I was working with and it was Nick that was responsible for digging up the deeper history on this line of coastals. It seems that VPI had acquired the line from Amy Zerkle who had acquired them from Lloyd Lemke. This line has also been referred to as Lemke line coastals.
The MPenn coastal carpets are derived from animals consistent with those of the central area of their range and are one of the most recognized lines of coastal due to their bright contrast saddle (banding) color to the interstitial color, a greenish tint or hue and often striped.
