Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...Mandarina.

John,

I spoke to Karl at one point regarding that particular mandarina (as I recall that snake was also labeled axanthic at one point) but you would need to speak with him regarding that issue.

The animal pictured is an imported axanthic mandarina which I own. Following a lengthy rehabilitation process (the snake was razor thin and on deaths door when I received her about 5 years ago), I'm happy to say that she finally produced a small clutch of hets last season.
That's her story, and if you had never seen this snake, here's her photo from Sacha Korell's Ratsnake Page

I should mention that the photo is slightly overexposed but the sharpness/clean diamonds is accurate.

Walt Deptula

Axanthic Mandarina

I am very glad to hear that you have rehabilitated a very valuable animal. I'm also glad to hear you are still working with mandarina. When your website disappeared I was sorry to see it go. You had photos of great ratsnakes and the info you included was very interesting. Also the practices that you followed were very commendable.

I hope you have great success establishing a very beautiful morph to the mandarin hobby.

Best regards
John

John,

Thanks for the kind words. Browsing your photos, you obviously have a very diverse and beautiful group of mandarina as well. Congrats on the fine collection.

Regarding the "beauty" of my axanthic, the old adage of "eye of the beholder" applies, LOL. Response to seeing her photos brings polarized opinions as you might imagine. That said, I can tell you that she has a genuine stark beauty in person which transcends any photo.

Walt

to the fact that even someone who breeds mandarins doesn't necessarily have to see the beauty of this morph. I was asking this breeder (who I will leave nameless) what he thought of the photo of one I directed him to, and he said it was unattractive.

Oh well, to each his own. I think they look great.

John

John,

I would agree that it's to each his own, because personally I find the yellow coloration, in combination with the black markings and the grey groundcolour, what makes E. mandarinus so beautiful. But that's just my opinion!

By the way, my male has eaten voluntarily for the first time today! How are your problemfeeders doing?

Kind regards,

Bert Grit

P.S. I loved your Mandarin-pictorial!

It's a fantastic feeling when one of these stubborn holdouts finally ends a hunger strike. Well, the pair from germany are eating fine on their own now and growing fat and big. All of my new hatchlings from last year are eating on their own except for one stubborn bugger. But I have a feeling that I'll win in the end. I have a few that are starting to get picky right now, but I think that has to do with the rising temperature. I'll have to bring them into the basement soon or use air-conditioning to fool them.

Thanks for the compliment and I look forward to a picture on here from you. A viet mandarin is definitely a welcome sight.
Best regards
John

John,

Stefan told me that forcefeeding is seldom necessary past the first year, so I guess he was right, huh? I mean, my male has started feeding and your hatchlings from Stefan have started feeding after one year of forcefeeding.

It's unfortunate that I don't know someone with a decent digital camera, because I would really like to take pictures and show the snake to you and the other members of this forum. We've got a simple 4.1 MegaPixel camera that just doesn't capture the colors at all! Even without using flash, the yellow always comes out very pale and our camera just doesn't pick up on the red in the groundcolour; instead the camera makes it brown. The result is a snake with a dark groundcolour (darkgrey with brown spotting) and very pale yellow, whereas in reality the snake is a rather bright lemon yellow with a very light grey groundcolour, but with also intense bordeaux red spotting.

Force-feeding for a year isn't the worst price to pay for a good mandarin. Hopefully the offspring are not all as reluctant as the parents.

Don't worry too much about the camera. I'm using a 2.5 megapixel and the results are indeed poor. But I still enjoy taking the photos. And I'm probably the world's worst camerman. If you don't want to show them to the world then send them to me by e-mail. I promise I won't be critical of the quality. In fact I can guarantee ahead of time that I will enjoy them.

Best regards
John

OK John,

I will try to shoot a few pictures in a couple of days and e-mail them to you.

You know, I heard people say that you shouldn't forcefeed hatchlings because if they were living in the wild they would never survive. However, when I saw my snake vigorously (spelling?) attacking the mice yesterday, it sure was worth it helping him get through his first year. I offered him 4 appropiate sized prey items and he ate them all, and he didn't even wait until the evening/night would set in! I placed the mice in his enclosure at 16.00 hours local time and by 17.00 hours the mice were gone! I sure hope that the next feeding will be quite such a succes!

I understand the logic of only breeding the hardiest stock. So if you had a line of corn snakes and 3 out of the 10 hatchlings were troublesome feeders it would make sense not to breed from those bad feeders. But when you're talking about a breed that costs hundreds of dollars each and is fairly uncommon in captivity I'd say that weeding out the less hardy can wait until there are enough offspring around that you can select from. When you have a chance to breed your mandarins, you can always rate them and select the most hardy as your next breeder stock. Of course if they're all picky feeeders then you're stuck. Then you'll have to out breed to correct the problem.

I'm sure he'll continue to eat well. Of course he'll probably be full for quite a while now that he's ahd a big meal.
Best regards
John

Hello Walt,

It's nice to see you back on this forum! If you might remember, I've inquired about your ('normal') Mandarins a couple of years back.

Concerning the 'axantic' snake, I would like to mention that a German breeder hatched a male about 2 years ago that lost all of it's yellow coloration within it's first year. From the pictures I have seen, I would say that this snake looks alot like the snake in your picture, but judge for yourself (I have added the link below).

Just for your information.

With kind regards,

Bert Grit
The Netherlands

Axantic Mandarin Ratsnake?

Hi Bert,

Thanks and I certainly remember our email exchanges. I recall that you were on the negative side of the polarized opinion
on the axanthic, LOL. Have you come to your senses yet? Just kidding.

That breeding is very interesting, the pictured snake does look like you might imagine mine might have looked as a wild hatchling. Thanks for the photo.

Walt

Bert,

Old habits die hard, I forget the genus taxa status change to Euprepiophis mandarinus.

Looking at that photo again, I'd guess it's about a yearling in that shot although it's hard to tell based on the macro nature of the picture.

Walt

Walt,

Just for your information, you might remember that I was looking for Mandarins with locality data? Well, I decided to purchase 2 sexual couples of hatchling E. mandarinus from Sichuan Province from a Chinese dealer, but unfortunately I got ripped off... However, last year I finally purchased a male hatchling from '04 from a very nice German breeder that comes from a Vietnamese lineage! The grandparents of my snake were captured in Northwestern Vietnam. I hope to pick up a female (also from Vietnamese lineage) this year.

With kind regards,

Bert

OK, I meant to say "kind" instead of "nice" (in reference to the breeder).

Hi, Walt. Nice animal.

I think it's good to get some morphs for the Eurasian ratsnakes. I've been trying for years to get something to add to my bimaculata and/or dione lines to help make them more popular and interesting, but unfortunately, morphs are really hard to find in the hobby (here in the U.S.)

I hope you keep it going with the anery mandy. I think it's nice looking and an interesting addition to a Mandarin collection. BTW, how are those hets doing that you produced last year? Any chance for a pic...LOL?

Terry

Thanks, Terry.

I will post a picture soon.

Walt