As I said in my previous post I did not purchase it.



I wish I could post more info but that is about all I have. I am by far not a novice when it comes to snakes and especially venomous although I have not maintained any of the Australian/New Guinea elapids but have kept cobras.



The snake was abandoned in a residence in Central Florida. I do not know who the previous resident/owner is.



When I first looked at it it reminded me of cobra / elapid morphology. Heck even the faint monocle like pattern looks weird on the neck although it does not have hood structure.



It fed readily on frozen thawed mice, the black ones in the first pictures in it's original aquarium it was found in. I attempted to get a look inside the mouth as it went to swallow the last bit of mouse and would take a gapping yawn. It never did. It eats like a milksnake (Lampropeltis) very closed mouthed.



The next thought was to feed it live prey to see if it causes an envenomating bite. It contricted the prey so I was unable to tell if it succombed to venom or contriction.



I look at it and I see elapid, most likely psuedonaja or psuedechis. My concern, among many, is that this is not a "common" kept venomous species if it is one of the brown snakes. So how did this person get it, especially without a permit (actually I can imagine how unfortunately)? Most first time venomous keepers in our area would start off by having one of the indigenous species.



I was called in to identify the snake and this is where we are at now. I was hoping someone else may have more experience with the "browns" to id it as I want to be 100% sure of its species as opposed to "I think it is".



Thank you for any assitance you can give.

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