I haven't worked with enough individuals of most species to what say which SPECIES is worst, but I'll tell you about the nastiest (in one way or another) individual snakes I've encountered.

As a kid I had an eastern milk snake that was generally OK with being handled, but would occasionally, without warning, turn and attack my finger and make a concerted effort to swallow it while I was trying to get him off.

As a teenager I had an amazon tree boa (at least I think so, the pet shop had no clue and I didn't have much of one at the time) that would do the exact same thing (except with my arm).

Then a few years ago I started working with hots.

For a while we had a death adder that would actually leave the floor striking repeatedly in my direction (and he often ended up on the floor because he didn't much like being on a hook).

We have a bush viper that once you've had him out, cleaned the cage and put him back suddenly starts doing an immitation of a paddle-ball game, striking out as far as he can reach with just the tip of his tail to bring him back to the branch and do it again.

We had a couple of wild caught black mambas that would not, under any cicumstances, go into a holding container and would occasionally charge you and then turn at the last instant and make a break for the least convenient place in the room.

The master so far though is a forest cobra I've been working with for about 3 years, and he hasn't settled down at all in that time. He will often rush out of the cage as soon as you open it, sometimes trying to get behind the cage, sometimes coming straight at you. It's more or less impossible to keep him on hooks and if you try, he will either climb the hook or use it as a platform to literally leap in your direction (this is always straight towards you). The only way to have anything like control over him is to hook-and-tail him in which case he alternates between striking up at your hand, striking towards your body and trying to climb his own body so you can't shake him loose. It's rare that I can move him 3 feet from the cage to a holding container without having to drop him at least once.

[ Show Entire Thread ]