Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It slips my mind... Is the Elephant Trunk a boid, or python...? I want to ask some questions, but don't know which forum to do it in.

-=Dave

Elephant trunk or File snakes are sort of an oddball. They are in their OWN little family... you have the boas, pythons, colubrids, ect. ect... and then you have the file snakes, which is one genus with only three species. People think that they're transitional between the 'lower' boas and pythons and the 'higher' colubrids. They sound like pretty strange snakes all around, I was sort of looking into them at one point.
So there's no forum that they really 'go' in except the general snake forum, and that's where I'd post if I were you.

It's a Python. It's called an Elephant Trunk Snake because of it's peculiar habit of camouflaging itself as the trunk of an elephant. It does this by jumping up and grabbing a passing elephant by the end of the trunk, then swallowing the elephant's trunk completely. It then just hangs there looking for all the world like the elephant's real trunk. It irritates the elephants to no end.

File Snakes, on the other hand, are Boas. They get their name from their unique ability to keep things in order. They can often be seen in pet stores filing invoices, etc. The biggest problem with them is that they can't type. No fingers, you know? For typing you have to use a Secretary Bird, which will constantly try to eat your file snake.

OK, OK...I'm just kidding...

Meretseger is absolutely correct regarding the taxonomy, etc. of these snakes.

Mr. G., you are as funny as anything I've seen on this or any other board in years.

~~Greg~~

I like how you added the secretary bird in there...L0L.

we will learn about Windshield Vipers.

a
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Who are you who can say it's ok to live through me? Alice In Chains

You scared me for a second! The way things have been going lately I would not be suprised if elephant trunk snakes WERE pythons and all my ratsnakes have been reclassified as kittens and I have to fill their water bowls with milk.

No..you're OK. It's your Milk Snakes you have to do that for. In my exhaustive studies and research, spanning many, many seconds at my local research station (The Sports Bar down the street), I have come to the conclusion that the "folklore" about Milk Snakes stealing milk from cows (hence the name "Milk Snake" is actually, in fact, true. This is a case of rapid reverse evolution. As little as 75 years ago, Milk Snakes were actually just another widespread species of Coral Snakes and were highly venomous. They could be found anywhere cows were found. They have retained the Coral Snake coloration, which more closely resembled some of the South American Coral Snakes in the order of the red, black and yellow bands.

The reason for the fast reverse evolution was simple. They would jump up and grab the cow's udder and start to steal milk, but in their excitement would accidentally envenomate the cow. Then the cow would fall over, crushing the snake. Thus, in order to keep from becoming extinct, they started a process of reverse evolution back to a non-venomous species. It was sort of an emergency, so they did it quickly.

In the last 25 years or so, they have gotten away from drinking milk. I'm still researching the reason for that. I'll be working on that one tonight at the research station. I think it's going to be one of two things. Either they don't like the chemical additives in the cattle feed (it makes the milk taste funny), or the farmers are always running them off so they just got fed up and switched to mice and stuff. In captivity, they still enjoy an occasional bowl of milk, especially chocolate because it hides the chemical taste.

OH,

I was ready to take a nice long vacation with every herpetological book I own and begin an intensified read session.

Then I was going to call you and see if you had any of Grannies old recipe left to share. LoL

I am ready for my next lesson in taxonomy.

Dann,
Forget those old books. I'm writing a new, updated Herpetology textbook with the findings from all of my reaseach down at the research station.

Tonight I'm finishing up my study of Milk Snakes, then I'll move on to Corn Snakes and Hoop Snakes.

I ran out of Granny's stuff a couple of months ago. I'm just using the stuff they serve at the research station now.

Guess that expensive, three volume, literary purchase you made in Daytona is being put to good use. Themed coaster set during your research sessions or paperweights for research notes hastily scribbled on cocktail napkins perhaps?

Regards,
J.

Yeah, I'm going through that set now finding all of the errors. Can you imagine that these so-called qualified Biologists, Zoologists, and Herpetologists actually think that the Hoop-snake thing is a myth? Why, I have an old farmer here as an actual witness to a hoop snake rolling up into a hoop and chasing down a young boy, then stinging him to death with his tail. Well, he's not actually an eyewitness, but his grandfather had a first cousin who PERSONALLY knew a guy that heard another guy saying he saw it happen back in the '30's. If I could just catch the old guy when he's sober again, I'll get the rest of the story and add it to my notes. I went over there last night to talk to him but he was passed out in the back of the pickup and I couldn't really talk to him. He's usually willing to talk near the end of the month because he's out of money and his check doesn't come until the first of the month. I just take him to the research station and after a couple of pitchers of beer, he starts to remember all sorts of things that happened when he was a kid, many of them having to do with reptiles. Once they killed a 12-foot long Eastern Diamondback. It stretched all the way across the road and it took 4 grown men to hold it up.

He also has personal knowledge of what seems to be either pack-hunting or gang activity among Cottonmouths. It involved a water-skiier, but I'll have to get the rest of that story, too.

Maybe if your are lucky you can dig up some more info on neonate copperheads successfully mimicking nite crawlers and ending up in the pockets of recently deceased fishermen. I've always wanted to take that one on myself seings how I like to fish. Don't want to make the same error.

Regards,
J.

Also, I'll start searching my references "Foxfire series" for more info. I know you'll accept these books as an irrefutable source.

Regards,
J.