Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All!

Finaly I got a pair of maculophis bellus bellus! Realy happy with them!
here some pictures of the male:

I also got some pairs of M. bellus chapaensis, will send pictures soon!

Best regards,
Gidi van de Belt

Gorgeous snakes! Remind me of the Central American Psuedelaphe flavirufra. Where are the from?
-----
See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Hi,

Yes they look a bit like flavirufu, but are something more special ...

They are from the westen part of Mt. Mangshan in Hunan province (china).

Best regards,
Gidi

Very beautiful. I have heard very little of this species and I've never heard of them being kept in captivity.

Are these a rare and/or hard to obtain species?

Have they only recently been imported? In other words can we expect to see more wild caughts coming in?

Since I mostly keep locality specific snakes is there anything more you can tell about their origins, ie. who brought them in, are they really from the locality you mentioned or is that just their natural range and/or where they were exported from?

As far as care, are they similar to Mandarin Rats? Or what?

Do you have any info on acclimating wild caughts and/or what kind of shape, healthwise, they are when imported?

Are they being bred in numbers?

Again very beautiful species. Thanks for posting.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

Hi,

Yes they are very rare, this are the only one I know if in captivity.

No, we can not expect more wild caughts come in. As there is already looking for, for a long time, they are extremely rare.

My friend found them in the wild in the western part of Mt. Mangshan in Hunan province (china).

They are very similar to Oreocryptophis and Euprepiophis groups. With same behaviour and attitude.

This ssp. was never bred in captivity, as I already said they are the only one I know of in captivity.

When I breed them I will show pictures on the forums.

Best regards,
Gidi van de Belt

Wow, exciting stuff and very best of luck with breeding them.
-----
See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Yes they are nice!

Will keep you all updated on their breeding progress .

Best regards,
Gidi

Thanks for the info. Congrats on being able to work with such a beautiful and rare species, with locality data to boot. I hope they breed for you and you can introduce this species to herpetoculture.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

Thanks!

Yes it is important to know their origin..

Best regards,
Gidi

Do you have/know of any other Asian Rats with reliable locality data? Or bloodlines that can at least be traced to a particular importer and/or exporter? Not neccessarily the name of the exporter but at least the city and country where the exporter was based out of and the year they were exported? This would at least give one the ability to make a reasonable assumption of where the snakes came from to the point that one would at least be fairly certain of accurate species/subspecies identification.

For example O. p. laticincta that could be traced to a Malaysian exporter. Knowing that the exporter was based in Malaysia would allow one to be fairly certain that they really were selling pure laticincta, since it would be highly unlikely that say O. p. vaillanti got mixed in with the shipment.

Right now my collection is mainly locality Graybands and Arizona Mtn. Kings. I really like the L. mexicana ssps. too but it is so hard to find traceable bloodlines anymore since wild caughts are no longer being imported/exported. When they were being imported/exported very few people in the hobby cared about locality. Also many people have unkowingly and knowingly mixed them with other species and subspecies without keeping accurate records, or if they did few of their customers cared to ask for those records. As a result, over time the purity of most L. mexicana bloodlines is uncertain. For this reason I don't work with very many L. mexicana anymore. The ones that I do have I just consider them generic because all I can base things off of is looks.

The same thing is probably going to happen with the Asian Rats. Already several subspecies have been intentionally crossed. Not that I'm against crossing per say but I fear that as time goes by and the value of these species/subspecies drops fewer and fewer people will bother with making accurate identifications or keeping detailed records. If at some point import/export ceases the original data will be lost. Then the predominant situation may be that we are no longer able to be certain of the identifications of what we have in captivity.

It would be beneficial if a few people would now, while we still have wild caught and/or F1 specimens, make efforts to obtain and retain as much data as possible and pass that information on to interested buyers of captive borns.

Sorry for the long post but it is asked in the intrest of preserving the uniqueness and integrity of these species/subspecies for current and future keepers.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

Hi,

Here the reply :

>>Do you have/know of any other Asian Rats with reliable locality data?

I have M. bellus bellus from western part of Mt. Mangshan (Hunan, china). I have M. bellus chapaensis from Sa Pa (Lao Cai, Vietnam). I have O. porphyraceus pulchra from Mt. Da Wei Shan (Yunnan, china). I have O. porphyraceus laticinctus from Cameron highlands (Malaysia).

>>Or bloodlines that can at least be traced to a particular importer and/or exporter? Not neccessarily the name of the exporter but at least the city and country where the exporter was based out of and the year they were exported? This would at least give one the ability to make a reasonable assumption of where the snakes came from to the point that one would at least be fairly certain of accurate species/subspecies identification.

All snakes I get from my fiends in china, vietnam and malaysia are very reliable persons, so I know for 99% the exact locality of my animals.

>>Right now my collection is mainly locality Graybands and Arizona Mtn. Kings. I really like the L. mexicana ssps. too but it is so hard to find traceable bloodlines anymore since wild caughts are no longer being imported/exported. When they were being imported/exported very few people in the hobby cared about locality. Also many people have unkowingly and knowingly mixed them with other species and subspecies without keeping accurate records, or if they did few of their customers cared to ask for those records. As a result, over time the purity of most L. mexicana bloodlines is uncertain. For this reason I don't work with very many L. mexicana anymore. The ones that I do have I just consider them generic because all I can base things off of is looks.

This is very sad indeed. Like the first captive O. porphyraceus pulchra who came into the hobby (Pro Exotics have this line as well), where NOT pure pulchra but a hybrid beteen porphyraceus porphyraceus and poprhyraceus pulchra. You can check it by counting their ventral scales.
The only very pure locality pulchra in the hobby I have, because I know the person who caught them very good and so I know exact locality data. Especially with those p. poprhyraceus and p. pulchra (who look very identical) it is very important to keep clean lines.

>>The same thing is probably going to happen with the Asian Rats. Already several subspecies have been intentionally crossed. Not that I'm against crossing per say but I fear that as time goes by and the value of these species/subspecies drops fewer and fewer people will bother with making accurate identifications or keeping detailed records. If at some point import/export ceases the original data will be lost. Then the predominant situation may be that we are no longer able to be certain of the identifications of what we have in captivity.

That would be very very very sad.....

>>It would be beneficial if a few people would now, while we still have wild caught and/or F1 specimens, make efforts to obtain and retain as much data as possible and pass that information on to interested buyers of captive born.

All my specimens that I keep are all wild caught and F1's.

>>Sorry for the long post but it is asked in the interest of preserving the uniqueness and integrity of these species/subspecies for current and future keepers.

Yes this is very very important!

Thanks for your post!

Best regards,

Gidi van de Belt

That's fantastic that you have all those locality bloodlines to work with. Someday I would like to work with some of those but I'm not sure if I could afford it right now and I don't know anybody who can import into the USA. It's still good to see that someone is working with them.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

Simply beautiful Gidi - a really special snake for a really special person
-----
Ratsnakezone

Hahaha ..

Thank you Sue!

Best regards,
Gidi

WOW! Talk about an amazing rarity! Those are awesome, Gidi! Hurry up with those "Chapa" pics!
-----
-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

Will send the Chapaensis pics tomorrow, first I need to take some good pics ... be patient!

Best regards,
Gidi

Posts like this are why I lurk around these forums. Something that makes you stop and go "What the hey!" Nice. Good luck with them.

Hi,

Thanks!

I am also more than happy with them ...

Best regards,
Gidi

Damn! Just when I thought I had seen it all, here comes Gidi to prove me wrong. Bleeping amazing!
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

Hi Herman,

Just wait and see... much more surprises for you ...

Best regards,
Gidi

where does Gidi live? (and I hope IN the USA but I'm wondering....(please)....LOL....
these things are sweet....make babies....lots of them...LOL...I know I will never own them...till there are enough in the industry so everyone can have them...I will be gone....(unless...!...hopefully they are easy ....!)

Good Luck Gidi...they are very sweet......

(max size?...rough guess...?)...

...THANXXX JY
-----
........JY

Hi,

I live in Amsterdam (holland). But I can ship snakes to the USA without any problem, so if you are interested drop me an e-mail.

Best regards,
Gidi

Wow!,...those guys are simply BREATH TAKING!!

A big congratulations on those!

~Doug

-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Thanks!
Yes they are very nice!

See thread above for the chapaensis pics.

Best regards,
Gidi

Wow, simply amazing. How are they fairing so far(adapting to captivity)? Best of luck with them. I never thought I would see those in someones collection.
-----
Matt Kauffman

They are doing very well, eating good shedding good...

So hopefully I will have some babies in the future!

Best regards,
Gidi

Hi, Gidi. Great looking snake. It's really nice that someone is finally working with this species, and the Chapa ratsnake.

It's been some time since there was literature (Utiger et al, 2005) proposing new ratsnake genera. I'm wondering what paper started the "Maculophis" genus name, since last time I checked, this snake was being called Elaphe leonardi, although it was supposed to be closest to Euprepiophis and Oreocryptophis.

Very interesting localities on these snakes too. Schulz, '96, only had a few localities from n. Burma and n. Vietnam. I wonder how the species were located so far away in China?

Sorry for the questions, but it's bound to happen with new, exotic species. Good luck with them.

Best.... Terry

>>Hi All!
>>
>>Finaly I got a pair of maculophis bellus bellus! Realy happy with them!
>>here some pictures of the male:
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Gidi van de Belt
-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org