Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After a good 79 days of incubation at 85 F (or 30 C), the first baby poked its head out of the egg early in the morning (on 9-10-03), then emerged that evening. The next day (9-11-03) the rest of the three emerged. These little guys are just neat. They are around 12 to 13" or so in length and actually much bigger than I was anticipating. Their little heads aren't quite proportionate (they are huge!) with their bodies and it looks like the head is going to have to grow around their huge, bulbuous eyes. Each baby is colored the same, base color being a brownish on top with cream bottom and bright green eyes. When they inflate themselves, however, (which they do quite frequently) they inflate the entire body to change from the brown snake to a suddenly very blue snake. The skin between the scales at this time is a bright, almost turquois (sp?) blue. Pictures of them will soon follow..as soon as my roommate gets home since he knows how to work with this new digi cam, lol. Anyway, thanks for reading and especially thanks to all the great people I've talked with over the course of this whole process. It will always amaze me just how long it took these snakes to reproduce. The first for sure copulation was witnessed and documented on Jan 11. The female continued to shed and eat normally for the next several months, then in the first week of June I noticed her posterior bulging very noticeably so I stopped feeding. I figure she was gravid (finally!) but still no eggs could be palpated. On June 23 I walked into the snake room to find 4 good eggs and one slug on the floor of the cage rather scattered about. She had a nest box at this time but decided against using it I suppose. So she went over 6 months between copulation and ovoposition, and then you have to account for the lengthy incubation time. Ah well, neat snakes, I could talk about them for days. I think there should be a book written solely on this species, heh. Anyway, again, thanks for reading.
River Valley Snakes

Congratulations! Job well done. Write the book!

~~Greg~~

I'd actually love to, but I just don't have the discipline to accomplish a feat like that. Oh well, maybe one of these days when my house is overrun with slangs

Hey! you could always print out this thread (if it gets long enough....) and there's your book!
Frank

Congrats.

Terp Man