Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it normal for some mandarins to have a high amount of red pigment? I just ordered a wild caught male who came in with a ton of red pigment. I have some that are real grey and some with a little red showing but this guy is something else. I'll see if I can get a photo of him on here when I get some batteries for the digital?

See attached link for a really red mandarin

Regards
John
Link

That guy in the pic is the twin of mine! Thanks for the info.

then you've got yourself an extremely nice red mandarin there. I'm curious how your track record has been with the wild caughts. I've had very mixed results. I have one wc (see photo below) that is very healthy after a year and a half. But all the other wc's I've had have died within six months.

Regards
John

I've lost one out of the original 4 I purchased. But he acted very sluggish since the day I got him in. I yet to have any problems with the pair I just got in. Have you had any aggression problems? Out of all the wc I have only one a female bites like crazy. The others have never tried to bite.

Most of the mandarins I've worked with (both wc and cb) have been high strung. With very little provocation they'll tail rattle and strike. But two of my wild caughts were just the opposite. They were among the most docile and calm snakes I've ever worked with. They resembled each other in being of a larger size and a lighter color with larger yellow saddles than most of the mandarins I've worked with. I don't have any locale info but I tend to believe that there may be local variation of temperment and that these come from an area where the mandarins are a little mellower.

John