Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been pairing my male up with two different females in the past week or so.Though I have not seen any hook up yet,I have noticed that the male is biting onto both females when he is paired with one of them.I did not see this last year.It almost reminds me of the way a whitetailed deer "lip curls"(flehmans response) during the rut.It looks like he opens his mouth to draw in more scent,then bites onto them.Is this typical behavior?
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"Upon Thy Belly Thou Shalt Go"

>>I have been pairing my male up with two different females in the past week or so.Though I have not seen any hook up yet,I have noticed that the male is biting onto both females when he is paired with one of them.I did not see this last year.It almost reminds me of the way a whitetailed deer "lip curls"(flehmans response) during the rut.It looks like he opens his mouth to draw in more scent,then bites onto them.Is this typical behavior?
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>>"Upon Thy Belly Thou Shalt Go"

Yeah, that's pretty typical for subocularis. In fact, some males bite pretty hard and even draw blood

DR.

my expirience is that the female is one shed away from being receptive. it may be possible for the male to force a copulation and eggs may be fertilized. What I know for sure based on my experience is that after the next shed the female is always receptive and has always produced a viable clutch.

>>my expirience is that the female is one shed away from being receptive. it may be possible for the male to force a copulation and eggs may be fertilized. What I know for sure based on my experience is that after the next shed the female is always receptive and has always produced a viable clutch.

Mine bred minutes after he bit her nearly 30 times on the body...it's just a way for the males to pursue the females and get her to submit to his advances, whether she's receptive or not. I'll have photos of it in the book.

DR

to elaborate, here is some more information that i believe supports my theory based on my eperiences. First, I believe some male subocs are aggressive breeders and these are the ones that are likely to bite if a female is not quite ready to bread. My eperience is based on only one male that Had that i considered aggressive in this way. He was wild caught in '87, a large male around 5'. He was bread to a wild caught female close to 4' also captured in '87 (two nights earlier). the next year after becomming well acclimated, breeding was attempted. The first attempt was scary, he was very aggressive, and after inflicting what i considered a fairly serious bite wound I separeated them. During his attempt to court their tails would entwine but the female bucked every time the cloacas met. I then introduced a normal wild caught male close to her same size that was a proven breeder. He had no interest at all at that time. I let her wounds heal and after the next shed the large wild caught male bred her in seconds with no aggressive behavior. he showed this behavior over the years with several different females. biting when not receptive, not biting when the females were receptive. Keep in mind that this was a very large, robust male and he never saw a female close to his size while i had him. it may be possible that males that are larger than their female mates may be more likely than smaller males to exhibit aggressiveness if a female isn't quite ready to breed. I'm just sharing information, I make no bold, blanket statements. regards, rusty................ NOTE: these snakes were caught in august of '87. ricky greene may remember photographing them one afternoon at the easter egg vally motel. some guy who was staying there saw us with the snakes and threw a fit saying that we had no right to take those snakes from the wild. showing him our hunting liscenses still did not satisfy him. I thought a fight was going to break out over those two snakes. he was enraged. Remember that rick?

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"Upon Thy Belly Thou Shalt Go"