In another thread, Pinjohn reminded me about this:

Quote Originally Posted by PINJOHN View Post
Quote Originally Posted by chris-uk View Post
Good photos. Good looking snake, I like the red stripe with the muted colours on the sides.

You call that a scar? I'll show you a scar.
did any body else hear the music from jaws while reading the above?....dun dun..dun dun..dun dun

So, Vlad's "scar" or "dent" or something... Here's the pics I loaded into the gallery:





It's difficult to photograph because:
- it is more obvious when he breaths in, and he doesn't tend to hold his breath with his lungs empty.
- black scales showing the shadows of a dent... the light needs to be at the right angle to see it.
- Vlad isn't fond of keeping still for a photo.

To me, it looks like he's broken a couple of ribs when he was little, the movement kind of reminds me of film I've seen of a "stove-in chest" (you probably have to be older to know what that is - pre-seatbelts and airbags it was a common injury for drivers in an RTA who would break their ribs in a neat circle when they hit the steering wheel).
Equally, it could be a healed cut, but there's no sign of a scar as such, just the dent. The scale over the top of the centre of the dent looks like it's loose, as you would expect as it's being flipped from convex to concave as he breaths - probably more of a problem with keeled scales, I'd imagine a flat scale wouldn't be affected as much.
Oh, and it's about 15mm long, and he shows absolutely no awareness of it (I've touched, poked and prodded it).

So any ideas?