Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anybody or has anybody ever worked w/ this species of snake? I read John Hollister's comments about Glossies on his Herping the TransPecos herpo forum. He said they'd been over-looked in the pet trade, and that they were docile upon being encountered in the wild and handled.

reako45

I have kept glossies a few times. They are generally docile and will learn to eat mice (they prefer prekilled mice).
Babies can take some work to get eating pinkies but scenting with a lizard will usually get them started.

They are pretty docile. They are kind of high strung at first but with time become easier to handle.

They like a deep substrate of something like aspen shavings and will burrow down into it most of the time.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

difference on how they do in captivity ? It seems the west Texas or the more arid ones ( my experience ) do poorly in captivity due to getting them to take mammals for food. And the neonates even worse to feed non-lizards than our species of milk snakes here and they are about the same size at hatch-lings as our milk snakes ( small ). It seems the farther north the better of getting them to eat rodents. But then these could be the recognized sub-species. The family of Glossy has a fairly big distribution of range in the USA. I have found 2 of the species in west Texas although I had to watch which ones i ever brought back as to the Kansas species here is on a non collected list ( i think it is still so ).
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

>>difference on how they do in captivity ? It seems the west Texas or the more arid ones ( my experience ) do poorly in captivity due to getting them to take mammals for food.

That's interesting. The only two populations of glossies I have ever kept were the Texas glossies from south Texas and the Painted Desert Glossies from the El Paso area. The big SoTex snakes are no problem. The EP ones were a little more troublesome maybe, but they generally learned to eat domestic mice within a few weeks without much trouble.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I have only kept two Glossy's. Both were a pinkish color and very attractive. They looked nothing like the wild Glossy's I had seen in Kansas. Unfortunately, both were males.

Does anyone know what locale they are from? I purchased them from Glades many years ago and they did not know.

They were very easy to keep.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

I kept Kansas Glossies and found them to be easy. Mine were kept on sand with very limited water. They acted like sand boas, staying under most of the time, and ate mice readily as long as they were small.

Temp was not an issue. I had no AC and in Florida that means temps to the 90's. Did not seem to matter as they never stopped eating.

Foos size I found, is part of the secret to success. Being very lizard orriented, their underslung mouth makes it hard for them to eat the same size prey a ratsnake of similar size will.

Mine bred producing 7 eggs which hatched in 44 days. After their first shed all seven ate live NBP.s without any encouragement.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I've kept both Arizona Glossy snake (Arizona elegans noctivaga) and the Painted Desert Glossy snake (Arizona elegans philipi). The Painted Desert Glossy snakes took live small fuzzy mice without hesitation and the Arizona Glossy snakes would only take lizards, but that is a very small sampling LOL

I have never bred them.

Kerby...

Wow! Thank you all for the info. Being a native of California the Glossies I'd get would be from the arid Mojave dessert region of the state.

reako45