Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was thumbing through a guide to African herps not too long ago, and saw a picture of one of these. Stunning animal, so I looked around a bit online and found a few...but there's very minimal care info. The most exact I saw was "keep like elaphe" which...well...not too exact.
I'm guessing they do all right in fairly dry warm conditions, but I don't anything about burrowing, climbing or any oddball things they do. I'd imagine the humidity isn't an issue, heat...should the warm end be like 80 or more like 90?

Anyone got advice on 'em? I'd been looking for a species to work with and was leaning towards beak nosed snakes but these look really neat too.

"... keep like Elaphe ..."

Which one, LOL! Besides, Diadem Ratsnakes actually aren't ratsnakes, they belong to the racer tribe (although it must be said it's a rather basal lineage which shows a lot of nested similarities with some ratsnake lineages, also racers and ratsnakes as phylogenetic taxa aren't really that distinct to begin with).

Anyway, they like it hot and dry. They have rather fierce attitudes and like to be left alone. Care isn't that complicated. Give it plenty of room, a secure hide, a short brumation (2 months will do), and they'll do just fine.

thanks
And yeah that was my reaction to the Elaphe comment too...it's like...erh, ok? That's a hell of a big genus, even after they split the new world rats into Panthertophis

They are also a Opistoglyphous snake.

Nate

Actually, they're not. But their saliva does contain threefingertoxins.