I was able to view live snake sperm under my microscope once when I found a "wet spot" left on a plastic cage bottom by a pair of copulating colubrids. I have metal dental tools I use for scraping debris from cage bottoms and I used a spatula shaped one to just scrape lightly across the wetness. I smeared it onto a slide and placed a coverslip over it (this flattens it to a minimal thickness so it becomes visible microscopically). I was amazed at the numbers of live "swimmers" I was able to see! Perhaps if you kept a breeding pair of ball pythons on a surface with no substrate, such as plastic box, you may find trace amounts of seminal fluid that you could collect?
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Susan Sentman

SSNAKES Reptiles

susan@ssnakes.com

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• Help - any experienced microscope users? - dwherp, Mon Mar 5 12:47:57 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - mikebell, Mon Mar 5 13:00:06 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - dwherp, Mon Mar 5 14:25:09 2012
• my first thought was - JYohe, Mon Mar 5 15:37:46 2012
• RE: my first thought was - dwherp, Mon Mar 5 16:27:37 2012
• RE: my first thought was - JYohe, Mon Mar 5 18:10:58 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - scott_austin, Mon Mar 5 13:47:25 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - paulbuckley, Mon Mar 5 17:06:43 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - Pyro4242, Tue Mar 6 06:51:12 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - dwherp, Tue Mar 6 08:44:15 2012
• Ask Dave or Tracy Barker - mikebell, Tue Mar 6 11:20:10 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - spitzu, Sat Mar 10 12:08:39 2012
• RE: Help - any experienced microscope users? - ssnakes, Wed Mar 14 13:11:17 2012