Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey!

I just had a question about temps for Blue Beauty ratsnakes, does anyone know what they need? Again, I heard 83-85 but it seems a bit low. Is anyone working with them?

Please let me know if you know anything about them...

Miya

I'm not an expert on beauty rat snakes, but they like it cooler than you normally keep North American rat snakes is my understanding. Keep a cool end and a warmer end so they can thermoregulate. The warm end should by 80-82 degrees and the cooler end in the 70-75 degree range. Try going to Cunningham's Elaphe at the top of this forum. Rick Cunningham keeps and breeds Blue Beauties. You can email him through the link to his website.

Terry Parks

Good advice from Terry P. Blues are supposed to be tropical, but at the same time I don't think they like it too hot. I keep Chinese, so I'm not an expert on blues either. With the Chinese, I keep them at room temp, 73-80*F, most of the time. They are pretty hardy. TC.

Thank you so much. This is what I thought, but was frantic and wanted to make sure I was right. I have had a hard time finding more than just tid bits of info on them, and no luck with natural history.

They are both beautiful and active. I will post pics as soon as I can!
Thanks!!!

Miya

Hello,

I keep a pair of Taiwans and have over the last three years I have consistently kept them at temps ranging from mid 70s to high 80s to low 90s. I think above all else you need to look at the temperature range of the geographic area where your snakes come from. A lot of people state that all the Taiwans, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. need to be kept cooler than North American rat snakes. Why?

The best I can figure is this assumption comes from one single source - a single general publication about ratsnakes, I believe maybe written by Jerry Walls, and possibly published by Barrons. Unfortunately that book has not been updated in years and was likely written based on information that was scant at best when the Southeast Asian rats started showing up in the pet trade [which was late 1990s if I'm correct].

What probably happened is that the Cave Rats [Elaphe taeniura ridleyi], probably require cooler temperatures because of their unique habitat choice - extrapolate and you get someone, somewhere taking this information and saying all Elaphe taeniura spp. need to be kept cooler than North American Ratsnakes.

Another case of this is many people seem to think all Macklot's Pythons don't grow any larger than about 7 feet in length. Again, someone way back when probably looked at all the Macklot's localities and deduced that the average length must be around 7 feet. So, you've got lots of people breeding them and keeping them and not realizing that the most common locality is the Timor Island Macklot's in which females routinely attain lengths of up to 10 feet, with males not much smaller. Food for thought.

In conclusion, and to finally answer your question I would keep your Vietnamese Blues on the warmer side - probably about mid to high 80s with a hotter basking spot - approaching 90 degrees. You can always go to www.weather.com and look up the weather for Ho Chi Minh City or some other city in the same geographic region and base your temps on that. I did the same thing for Taipei, Taiwan and found that it had much the same weather as what we get in Chicago, Illinois USA.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

>>What probably happened is that the Cave Rats [Elaphe taeniura ridleyi], probably require cooler temperatures because of their unique habitat choice - extrapolate and you get someone, somewhere taking this information and saying all Elaphe taeniura spp. need to be kept cooler than North American Ratsnakes.
>>

Matt, I don't want to be in conflict with you on this idea, but in my opinion, this concept above applies to all the ssps. of taeniura. They are not pythons and even in their tropical habitats they still have "colubrid" adaptations. I don't keep blue beauties, and my Chinese ssp. is not tropical, but here's some things I know about the blue beauty.

Schulz ('96) said the three recorded specimens, at that time, came from the mtns of n. Thailand and Burma. That in itself is a cooler ecosystem than lowland tropical. I have kept moellendorffi (red-headed rats) through the yrs, and they avoid the hot/humid tropical conditions by staying underground, or using limestone caves, most of the time. They are active mainly in the early morning, as are the taeniura ssps. In fact, taeniura ssps. are often called, "morning snakes". From this info I would keep the blues at a range from 70 to 85, maybe with a hotspot around 85, but definitely with the option of a cooler end around 80, or less, in daytime, and cooler at night.

I reluntantly posted this time because I'll be going out of town for awhile, so won't be able to respond further for now, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way. Sometimes different opinions lead to discovery and hopefully good, updated info on these very interesting snakes. Later...TC.

Terry,

Thanks for the reply to my posting. This is the kind of information I like to see - a citing of a definite source and the reasoning behind recommending a certain temperature range. Obviously you're far more familiar with what Schulz has written about the various taeniura spp. than I am. Makes me wish I had that expensive book of his. Anyway, if the Blues indeed all come from montaine regions then they would tend to like it cooler. Still, I'd like to know just how much range they cover as a species. Perhaps they might occur somewhere that is a more hot and humid environment.

On another note along the same lines. A co-worker of mine was born in Taiwan and lived there for a few years and still goes back to see family there. She assures me that Taiwan is much of the time oppressively hot and humid, however cooler in the mountains but not by much. I only keep Taiwan Beauties, so in my case tending to keep them warmer on occasion seems to be okay given what I've seen over the last couple years as I've monitored the weather there, off and on. Also, I've never seen much indication that my snakes were stressing from excess heat, and in fact even on the warmest days they tend to stay up in the "trees" [i.e. the highest branches in my enclosures which are 6' tall].

The interesting thing here is that the taeniura spp. seem to occupy such a large range throughout asia and southeast asia that as a whole you probably can't make blanket recommendations about temps. The main thing I've seen is a lot of people caution about keeping them too warm and are often recommending temps that seldom get out of the 70s - I still think keeping them at temps upwards of the mid 80s is pretty good as a rule and possibly going higher depending on the species.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

>>Terry,
>>
>>Thanks for the reply to my posting. This is the kind of information I like to see - a citing of a definite source and the reasoning behind recommending a certain temperature range. Obviously you're far more familiar with what Schulz has written about the various taeniura spp. than I am. Makes me wish I had that expensive book of his. Anyway, if the Blues indeed all come from montaine regions then they would tend to like it cooler. Still, I'd like to know just how much range they cover as a species. Perhaps they might occur somewhere that is a more hot and humid environment.
>>>>
On another note along the same lines. A co-worker of mine was born in Taiwan and lived there for a few years and still goes back to see family there. She assures me that Taiwan is much of the time oppressively hot and humid, however cooler in the mountains but not by much. I only keep Taiwan Beauties, so in my case tending to keep them warmer on occasion seems to be okay given what I've seen over the last couple years as I've monitored the weather there, off and on. Also, I've never seen much indication that my snakes were stressing from excess heat, and in fact even on the warmest days they tend to stay up in the "trees" [i.e. the highest branches in my enclosures which are 6' tall]. >>

Matt,

I have time for a short reply as I'm going out of town again, for the rest of the weekend.

I think one of the reasons we have trouble with the Asian species is because not much has been written about them. Schulz' book is the bible because it's almost the only book, and gives considerable information, including some natural history and husbandry notes.

Friesi, like the other Indo-Chinese ssp, except yunnanensis, are not montane exactly, but inhabit altitudes from about sea-level to about 1000 m in montane regions, according to Schulz. I've monitored the climate of Taiwan and other places in Asia too. One reason the snakes hide a lot is because it is so hot/humid in summertime, which can be a long season.

Most of the taeniura ssps. are found in foothills of mtns, rather than on coastal plains, and there are probably lots of microhabitats, including caves for most ssps. It's funny neither of us actually keep blue beauties, and are having this discussion. Maybe that's what is needed though. When Schulz published his book, he only had 3 specimens of blue beauty (taeniura ssp.) to look at. There was very little info at that time. The couple pics I saw were of a gorgeous snake, but there had to be more variation. Since then, many ratsnake breeders have added blues to their collections, but I think most of them have come from a few imports.

I really don't know much about how many imports there have been or the exact locations the snakes came from. I don't think many folks do. Some were said to have come from Vietnam (which means North Vietnam). North Vietnam is mostly montane and is very close to the ranges of yunnanensis and mocquardi in the east. I think blues intergrade with yunnanensis in the wild, but yunnanensis is montane and the blues probably inhabit the lower elevations where they meet. So the range of the taeniura ssp. now looks to be from n. Burma to n. Thailand, Laos, and N. Vietnam. I don't even know if the taeniura ssp. has received a ssp. name, or not, yet. The ssp. probably can only be recognized from color/pattern, tongue color, scalation, size, etc, but there will likely be many intergrades, both natural and manmade.

There is more definate information about t. friesi, however. You have noted that they tolerate fairly high temps. I wonder how long they can stand temps up to 85-90*? Certainly, you let it cool down at night, at least? I wouldn't argue that no ssp. could tolerate temps up to 85, or so, at least for a time, but that they would probably become uncomfortable if there was no relief from this heat, especially if it was very humid also. I would recommend a warm end, heated, for ssp. that were adapted better to the heat, but also a cool end, so it wouldn't be constant. You may have a point with the taeniura ssp. (blues) because of what we know about their habitats and climate. People will have to make observations and make adjustments according to what they observe from their captives.

>>The interesting thing here is that the taeniura spp. seem to occupy such a large range throughout asia and southeast asia that as a whole you probably can't make blanket recommendations about temps. The main thing I've seen is a lot of people caution about keeping them too warm and are often recommending temps that seldom get out of the 70s - I still think keeping them at temps upwards of the mid 80s is pretty good as a rule and possibly going higher depending on the species.
>>-----
>>Matt Campbell
>>Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
>>Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois
>>
>>Assistant Curator
>>Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
>>Lake Forest, Illinois

I agree that we can't generalize. We need to look at each ssp. individually. Different snakes have different needs. The range of the species is tremendous from Indonesia to India to East Asia. There's going to be variety, but also some general trends as a species. The blue beauties are supposedly between a ridleyi and a yunnanensis, so some will say that they could have similar requirements to these two. It should be a subspecies in its own right, eventually though, imo. Also, folks will talk about what they've heard from breeders who have the blues. We should probably avoid keeping them, and any snake, from becoming over-heated, or under-heated. That's one reason I think there should be variation in temps, and keepers should monitor the effects on their snakes.

Interesting subject, and lots to be learned by discussion. I hope some of the breeders give us some information too from what they've seen in their observations of the blue beauties.

Thanks for your reply and talk more later....TC.

Terry,

I remember reading an article from an old issue of Reptile and Amphibian magazine, the little Reader's Digest-size magazine that was published back in the 90s. Anyway, I'm not sure of the date but I'm guessing it was mid to later 90s and the article was written by a guy who had received a Blue Beauty in a shipment of other snakes from a breeder. He was intrigued and so put the word out to other importers to keep their eyes open for this species of snake. Eventually he acquired a breeding pair, however I think the article was written before he'd actually had success in breeding them.

This article and a comment you made brings up another point. We don't know exactly where the stock is coming from that has formed the basis of the captive-bred population. Obviously, they are not a difficult snake to breed however we don't know how big the orginal pool of imports was. Are these snakes still being imported as adults? Of all the cb specimens available are they from a very few original imports or has there been a lot of out-crossing with newer imports? The opens up a whole other can of worms about keeping a genetically viable population of the various asian ratsnakes before we start seeing unfavorable mutations like the bug eyes of the leucistic Texas ratsnakes, or the fact that a major portion of all amelanistic cornsnakes trace back to a single pair.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

Well that is a very good point. I can't speak for all blue breaders out there, I've been working with them for three years now. Last year in a trade I acquired an adult WC female which I bred and got a clutch of 14 from this year. In fact, the import list had 10 specimens on it, the pet store I acquired from got the last of the 10 available at the time. So yes, from time to time, WC specimens are still coming around. An I for one, took advantage of getting some "new blood" into my brood.

As for keeping blues. I have kept all of mine at room temps of 75-80 degrees farenheit, with exception for my adults, which is only for breading temperature/photocycle gradiant changes during winter. I've even experimented with keeping one clutch at 75-80 and approx. 40% humidity, and another clutch from 80-85 degrees and 60-70% humidity. My conclusion....either will work. These guys are very hardy animals capable of handling the higher gradients, or the middles and low/high humidities with no problems. Feeding, responsivness, and overall growth on the same feeding schedule seems to be identical on both cluthes, with exception for my first clutch hatchlings having an average length of 21 inches over the normal 15-18 average I've been experiencing in former cluthes, and the LTC females clutch.

I hope that my work with them puts a new light on these magnificienct snakes. I love all the beauties, and anyone who may have seen me this weekend in Raleigh with my breeder male will tell you why! I really think that these guys, among several other Asian ratsnake species have really been getting overlooked and under appreciated.

Anyway, just my penny-penny on a species I love and work with. Thanks for listening(reading?)...lol
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Conrad
Too Fast Reptiles
www.toofastreptiles.bravehost.com

Conrad, thanks for the post. I don't know why more "blues" keepers didn't respond? Even though I don't keep the blues myself, I appreciate the information you post. Twenty-one inches for hatchlings is amazing. I wonder if lower incubation temps allows more incubation time thus hardier babies? Keep posting the info about taeniura

TC

No problem. I'm always glad to share knowledge that I have acquired through experience.
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Conrad
Too Fast Reptiles
www.toofastreptiles.bravehost.com

Matt,

Good point. Not only could the gene pool be quite small, but there's another problem too. Most breeders don't know for sure where their snakes came from. Heck, I don't even know for sure where my Chinese ssp. came from. In fact, they are probably from several different locations. And the fact is the ssp. we say we have is probably based more on a few characters that we can point to, rather than any locality data.

That is one thing I took into consideration when I got my first taeniura, a pair of Taiwans. I was fairly sure they actually came from Taiwan. But today I wouldn't even be sure of that. The reason..people cross breed the ssps. w/o knowing for sure what they have.

The reason I sold off my Taiwans is not because of locality, but rather they were very large snakes and in order to have multiple projects and conserve space I needed to work with the smallest Asian snakes I could get. Thus I switched to t. taeniura..the Chinese. I don't have the "blues" for the same reason. This is a fantastic ssp, but just too big for my small Herp Room and resources.

The thing I'm most afraid of for the species is that people will pick up snakes they don't have locality info for and might not even know which subspecies for sure. Then they will breed them, or worse yet, will cross with another ssp, and make offspring that cannot be assigned to any ssp. These reasons, plus the fact the blues get so big, are why I'm not working with this ssp., but I still really like it for many reasons. If I were going to start with blue beauties, I'd find a breeder who would give me good info, such as how big they get, pictures of the adults for coloration, scale counts, etc. I would decide based on what I think a blue beauty should be like physically.

I would like to know if anyone has ever given this ssp. a classification, or if it is still just called, taeniura ssp? In a book I have on the snakes of Thailand, by Merel Cox, he just calls all the beauties from the north, east, and central regions, t. taeniura, after the Chinese beauties. Schulz calls the blue beauty, taeniura ssp. I haven't seen any updates on this since. I think the blue beauty should be given a subspecies status. It is pretty distinct over a large area. And recently, folks have been calling them Vietnamese blue beauties. I assume that's because they can be found in N. Vietnam, and there's been some imports from there in recent years. Would love to hear any updated info on that.

Well, gotta run for now.

TC

Terry,

You are definetly right, the Taiwans are huge! My pair are siblings and at roughly three years old they're both pushing 7 feet in length. They certainly can be huge snakes. As to whether the Blues have been identified to species, I think they're still up in the air. A couple comments on the EMBL reptile taxonomy page may help illuminate that:

"We follow David & Vogel (1996) for the subspecific systematic of Elaphe taeniura, which is quite controversial, and the ranges of the subspecies. This author recognises the validity of eight subspecies, one of which has yet to be described."

This is followed by:

"The subspecies previously known as Elaphe taeniura vaillanti (Mocquard, 1905) is renamed Elaphe taeniura mocquardi Schulz, 1996 (nomen novum pro Coluber vaillanti Mocquard, 1905 [non Simotes vaillanti Sauvage, 1877, a subjective synonym of Elaphe porphyracea nigrofasciata]). Note that mocquardi and yunnanensis appear to intergrade in Vietnam (ORLOV et al. 2000)."

The mention earlier the ranges of the various subspecies and have this information:

"mocquardi: People's Republic of China (including Hainan); Vietnam."

" yunnanensis: India; Laos; Myanmar; People's Republic of China; E Thailand; Vietnam."

So, what I think based on this information is that possibly the so-called Vietnamese Blue Beauties may be as you suspect an intergrade between mocquardi and yunnanensis. The EMBL database is the most up-to-date source for what is currently the most-accepted taxonomy, so since they mention a species that has yet to be described, I would say the Blues are probably that species and it may be that they are simply an intergrade.

Anyway, I'd still be interested to know if other breeders know where their stock has actually come from or is the transaction so far removed from the person who actually caught the snakes that we'll never know for sure what the locality of these snakes is and whether or not they're a true subspecies or merely an intergrade.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

Matt,

Thanks for the info.

I'm no expert, more of a theoretician, but I don't think any experts are going to chime in on this. I just don't think there's enough info available, and most breeders are probably going by what they've been told by previous owner or importer. That said, I do think the blue beauty is different, both in color and size and scalation from other subspecies. I don't know why there hasn't been more published on this. But for now I think we have to treat it as just a "morph", according to the desired characteristics. I think the "bluish" colored ones are the prettiest

PS: It's possible there are three ssps. in N. Vietnam, mocquardi, yunnanensis, and taeniura ssp. Mocquardi inhabits the low lying coastal plain in the east, yunnanensis is in the central/northern mountains, and taeniura ssp. probably inhabits the lower montane areas of nw. N.Vietnam. I don't think the "blues" are intergrades bt. yunnanensis and mocquardi, but probably are a new subspecies that hasn't been described well enough yet to be classified.

Terry

I'd have to agree, that from my experience, blues aren't an intergrade. They grow much larger, on average, than the other two species in question, and intergrading the two wouldn't bring about a "bluish" coloration, as they both are very yellow to orange in coloration and the blue would be from...? Plus much different patterning. This is subject to personal determination, I've had people tell me that they can't tell the difference between Taiwan juviws and Blue juvies, however mine are so noticeably different, I don't need to have them side by side to tell the difference, if not by color by pattern alone. I question any babies that "look" halfway between a blue and taiwan.

I definately agree that more info needs to be put out, if not still found out, on these species. Maybe that would help more people actually realize that these guys aren't what they expect them to be. I recently had a table at the Raleigh, NC reptile show, and brought my adult male blue beauty(if anyway out there saw me, please chime in!). I think really hurt a few peoples odds of selling boids both days...lol I also was able to get a lot of good info out to people who were simply amazed at the size and coloration of my fella and his babies, not to mention my seperate clutch from my WC female. Hopefully, these guys will begin to get the respect a "beauty" of a snake truly deserves.
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Conrad
Too Fast Reptiles
www.toofastreptiles.bravehost.com

Conrad,

I'd love to see pics of your "blues". People should see ones like yours often on the forum, so they know what's really out there. I've seen a few before that have the true blue color, the large size, etc. Once you've seen them, I don't know why anyone would want anything else.

Now, the Blue Beauty may not be officially a subspecies, yet, but we know there's a snake that covers a pretty wide range, that's quite different from the other ssps. Also, there's probably some variation depending on where it comes from...N. Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, etc. Folks need to decide what they really want in a blue beauty 'cus that's going to help determine what's going to be bred in this country. So, keep posting, and keep us up to date. Thanks,

TC

Terry,

I'm thinking I'm agreeing with you more and more on the disposition of the Blues. While the info I presented from the EMBL site indicates that it still isn't a described species, at the same time I don't necessarily buy that it is an intergrade between mocquardi and yunanensis. As Conrad pointed out both of those species do have more yellow in them. I also don't think you can mistake a Blue baby for any other species. Even as babies they are way more blue than any other species.

It still seems really odd that Schulz didn't take into account the coloration difference and assign them their own species designation. Of course it could be a case similar to California Kingsnakes where a single litter can exhibit striped, solid, and banded individuals - the point being that there is something weird going on there in terms of the expression of the gene controlling pattern and color. In the Blues, who knows - perhaps there is simply a color variation of a locality nature related to habitat choice.

Maybe they like dark areas in lots of shade to hang out in. Of course we're all just speculating here - we need someone to go to Vietnam and observe these animals in their natural environment! Any takers? Maybe I can get my zoo to finance sending me there! Well, at least the price on Blues has come down enough that we can all easily acquire plenty of stock to breed and experiment with.
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois