Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click here to visit Classifieds
DM Exotics Youtube
DM Exotics Youtube

Interesting rescue BCI(?)... White tongue stripes?? *pics*

Kestrel Aug 06, 2003 10:25 PM

So, a lady walks into my other half's work, and hands him a very heavy pillowcase, and says "here.. I used to dance with it, but its too big now. Take it." and leaves mysteriously. After work that day, he brings the as of yet unseen mystery snake in a bag over to my house. I take the bag, comment on how heavy it is, untie it, and carefully dump the large snake onto my living room floor. Out comes an 8ft colombian(?) redtail, in REALLY crappy shape. Obvious stuck sheds, rubbed nose, loud RI, and most notably, what looked at first to be a fungal skin infection, or some other skin ailment, covering the last 1/3rd of its body in an even scabby layer. After the intial rinse off(it was covered in tons of unmentional crap), I put it in a spare cage in my basement and let it relax for a couple days. Well I went to work on it the other day, soaking her for a long period of time, and starting to peel off the stuck sheds. Turned out what I thought was just one stuck shed, was actually 3 or 4 covering its entire body, and the scabby section of its body, was actually 6-8 who knows how many stuck sheds built up. In hour long sessions over the coarse of the past few days, I finally got every last bit of stuck shed off of her, including the nasty scabby crap on her tail. Out came a GORGEOUS yellow and bold black redtail. And oddly enough, during this, I noted that she has a WHITE striped tongue. I've never seen this on any redtail before. They're twin opaque stripes, on each side of the tongue, exactly like the blue ones on a Beauty snake. Anyone ever seen this before? I definatly haven't. But she's definatly turned out to be one gorgeous girl. She reminds me of a Peruvian in color, and a Longicauda in pattern. The yellow doesn't really show up at all in these pictures at all. It's really too bad she's been so neglected. She's covered in little scars from head to tail, and a scarred nose from all the nose rubbing. Who knows how her tail will heal up. Anyhow, here's some photos of the big girl i've dubbed Rosy. Once she recovers, she's going to become one of my Outreach snakes..

And to give you an idea of how deep the stuck shed on her tail was...

-----
DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1.0 reticulated python
1.0 albino burmese python
1.1 macklots python
1.1 jungle carpet pythons
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
1.1 ball pythons
1.1 pastel BCI
1.1 argentine boas
1.0 sonoran boa
2.2 albino and het albino chinese beauty snakes
1.0 cave beauty
1.2 taiwan beauties
1.1 cornsnakes(anery and snow)
0.1 nile monitor
0.0.2 savannah monitor
2.5 leopard geckos

Replies (5)

Kikai Aug 07, 2003 11:09 AM

Good for you for taking her in and fixing her up!! She's an amazing looking animal, and seems to be docile, too, after all the neglect. You are a lucky couple. Even more so, she's a lucky snake to have found you. Serendipity.
-----
1.1 Ball Python
0.0.1 corn snake
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon
0.0.2 fish
1.2 cats
3.1 kids
1.0 husband

AbsoluteApril Aug 07, 2003 11:41 AM

how sad the poor girl was so badly neglected! Kudos to you
for improving her and giving her a shot.. she deff. looks
beautiful! I haven't seen the white stripes on a tounge before
but it may just be a natural variance.. (my hi-pink boa has
blue eyes!) Her tail almost looks anery in the pics. She
has a sweet face and I'm sure is very grateful to you (in
her own way).

eurban2 Aug 07, 2003 11:55 AM

once she got away from her wicked stepmother. lol! I am so glad that she found a great home with you guys, most cases like this don't turn out so well. She is definitely a beauty!

RioBravoReptiles Aug 07, 2003 09:37 PM

fgsd
-----
Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Ryan Shackleton Aug 10, 2003 12:11 AM

I don't know how common it is in either species, but that snake's tongue loks exactly like my Dumeril's tongue. Another rescue, her history is basically unknown(working on tracking it down), and she's FINALLY up to a healthy weight, even if it did take 18 months to get her there. Looks like you ended up with quite a snake, good luck.

Site Tools