Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm looking here at threads that were pure Bulls..t!! Name calling, sensless repitition of the same arguement and ego's out the ying/yang. The debate on antivenom and the copperhead kid thread both both broke down into such a mess. Personally I was relieved when it appeared both arguements were finally over...Now I see more s..t, more picking at scabs....Enough allready!!!!!!! GROW UP!!!!!!!!
How about something different....like talking about snakes?
Frank

Ha, no one even answered my question. And it was totally about a snake. I guess no one knows... -_-;

What Q? I missed it somewhere, not that I'd know the answer, but curious.

Regards,
J.

It's about an obscure species, and it kind of got buried, but I've been checking it every two hours since Thursday.
Atractaspis irregularis

Variable Burrowing asp. Max size 66cm. Can't verify gland length. Habitat- East Africa Kenya, Uganda Moist savana, woodland and forest from 600-1800m altitude. Eats rodents. Two deaths (at least) on record according to my sources. I have never kept them so hopefully someone can fill the blanks.
Frank

Ah, that's very useful. Sounds a bit like a venomous Calabar boa to me.

Yeah, a calabar with one hell of a sideswipe......Frank

That's why I'm planning on keeping my hands away from the pointy end 3;8) . For her part, my Calabar boa keeps trying to bite me with her tail, it's quite depressing.

Quite sure I can't help. But now my interest is peaked. Just who are these guys?

Regards,
J.

The Atractaspids are a unique group of snakes. They are neither cobras nor vipers, although in the past they have been classified as both. They're a radiation of African colubrids which includes non-venomous, rearfanged, front fanged, and hinged fanged species. The rearfanged species eat centipedes and are very much like the American Tantilla. The African Harlequin snake, Homoroselaps, is in this family and is front fanged. The members of the genus Atractaspids (which are the ones I'm concerned about) are called stiletto snakes, burrowing asps and/or mole vipers. They have very unique fangs. They are foldable, like the fangs of vipers. But they can be rotated sideways, so they can stick out of the sides of the snake's mouth without the snake's mouth being open. This makes it possible for the snake to envenomate a person even when being held tightly behind the head. The fangs are supposed to be an adaptation for eating rodents in narrow burrows. They range in size from 2 to 3 feet. The venom from snakes in this family ranges from mild to quite dangerous.
The snakes in the genus Atractaspis look to me like black sand boas. Some of them have white tummies... er... ventral sides, and some are solid black. At any rate, I love burrowing snakes (I have something like 25 erycine snakes or sand boas), and I love oddballs, so I pretty much have to have this one.

Wow,

Live and learn. These guys sound pretty cool. What an adaptation...what a risk to the handler. What grip do you use? LOL. Seems like they can get you either way.

Regards,
J.

They can't be held, they have to be anesthetized for milking or tubed for anything else. Pinning would be a bad idea.

Yeah, they are unique critters alright. I don't know of a way to safely handle them with your hands. Tail and hook is one way, but they are brutally quick lashing around. As Meretseger pointed out, they can bite you from the side by rotating a fang out of the side of their mouth and because of the unique morphology of their heads, the fang will actually extend past the back of their head. They have short heads and long fangs (which look enormous in their mouth), a bad combination for handlers. Many people have found this out the hard way (including Mark O'Shea, as I recall) by trying to pick them up in the usual fashion by gripping the neck behind the head.

There are 16 recognized species, mostly exclusively African, but a couple are found on the Arabian Peninsula as well. Some species have been attributed with a 25 percent fatality rate in untreated bites and Stilettos are credited with being responsible for more than half of all serious envenomations in parts of their range in Africa....unusual for a burrowing snake. The thing about Stilettos is that they frequently come out at night prowling and are encountered on roads and paths where they are then stepped on by barefoot people, a guaranteed bite.

What a rare, if off-topic pleasure to catch an avowed linguaphile and word-a-holic in such a faux pas; and so much rarer and more dear when the “offender” caught is one’s mercilessly punctilious editor of a husband!

Touche’, Bearer of the Red Pen!

B

I meant your interest having been "peaked" had piqued my interest.

Moment of linguistic superiority too ephemeral.

.

Ouch, Damn, I hate it when she's right. For those of you out there that are still single, DON'T CHOOSE A LIBRARIAN!!!. They'll whup you. I'd rather have been corrected by the mouse as opposed to the spousal unit. Now I have to live with it...

Regards,
J.