Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know it's hard to generalize about the disposition of a species or subspecies, because age, health, captive vs. wild, and degree and quality of handling all influence it. But I'd be curiopus to hear experienced Drymarchon keepers rank the various taxa by their disposition. I assume Easterns would top the list for mellowness. Are erebennus second ?
thanks

I don't personally have any Easterns or Texans yet (at least not until July or so), but I do have a yearling pair of black-tailed cribos (Drymarchon corais melanurus). The male was pretty wiggly when he was young, but now he's totally cool. I've dealt with BT adults on a limited basis as well, and they really are just about as tame as any Eastern that I've held. Anyhow, that's my two cents.
Robert

Thanks for sharing! Keep feeding those little ones and you'll soon have a pair of monsters and your own "little ones" to boot!

Jeff Snodgres

Having worked with Drymarchon for well over 20 years and currently maintaining multiple pairs of all six of the available members of the Dry clan, I can say with some degree of certainty temperament is more an individual specimen issue, rather then a species vs. species issue.
In general, I believe most folks with a high level of experience with WC and CB specimens, there are many of them frequenting this forum, will agree that Eastern Indigos, Unicolor and Black-tail Cribos tend to be the most docile, though I have encountered a few aggressive members of each of the above species, especially the latter. Texas and Mexican red-tail Indigos are normally even tempered, though some do have a tendency to be more “sheepish” then those previously mentioned and Yellow-tail Cribos, especially WC specimens, tend to be very high strung in comparison to the rest of the clan..

Best regards,

Jeff Snodgres

i've only dealt w/ bt's, yt's and mainly unicolors and out of those three, it's hands down the uni's that are the most docile w/ their keepers and their mates. female uni's often remain shy and in hiding [even cb] but the lumbering males are gentle as kittens [even wc after awhile] and fairly inquisitive, coming right over and onto me when let out for a 'walk'. my biggest male [lt-wc] even tolerates the cats, pretty much considering them to be part of the scene and the cats return the favor. that's pretty docile!