Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yes, "Brazilian smooth snake" is one of the many common names hydrodynastes is known by.

Here is my yearling FWC female from Great Valley Serpentarium. She's more than 3 feet long, but I don't think she's quite 4 feet long yet. Both her and her contemporary male counterpart are eating f/t small rats. The male is definitely a "hands off" snake.

She's never bitten, and I've always been very careful and gentle with her and I always use a hook on her to judge her present mood before handling her, but today something odd happened. As I was attmepting to pose her a little (being very gentle), she quickly struck at my hand, and got her mouth over my thumb, but didn't "bite." It was a mouthing, if you can call it that. She got her mouth over my thumb, with just enough pressure for me to realize it, but no teeth. She let go immediately - it was just a momentary touch. I guess being out of her enclosure, smelling all the new smells of the outside, and being on a smooth surface made her a little edgy.

I think my habit of using a big dollop of alcohol gel hand sanitzier on my hands and forearms before handling any snake resulted in this unexpected benefit. The odor of the gel, I'm guessing, put her off the bite.

Anyone ever had a snake just mouth them like that before?

I work at a zoo for unwanted exotic animals and the standard procedure for dealing with a burm or boa bite is to dose the snake's mouth in listerine. Many of the employees and my boss have accidently been bitten by our big snakes during feeding and this is how we treat such a situation. It turns out the snakes let go after 20-60 sec. of tasting the listerine. The smell, and I'm sure the taste, really discourage the animal from sinking its teeth further. My boss kinda "experimented" with anything that was around when he was bitten (i.e. lukewarm coffee, juice, water, etc...) and listerine seems to be the best "bite remover". So, that's my 2 cents! LOL.

Hey Scott...You still in Florida?

Joe