Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ive been unsucessfully trying to find these snakes for sale. if anyone knows where these can be purchased you would be my new best friend. i have always had an interest in arboreal snakes and am currently owned by some. i have been trying to find blunt heads for about two years and i am willing to do almost anything to aquire one(or possibly two). any help is greatly appreciated.

thank you
mike davis

Imantodes are fairly delicate snakes and it may be that they don't transport very well so they aren't brought in by importers. They are pretty common in their wide range.

They, of course, might be hard to get to feed as they are snail/slug specialists (some apparently eat a lot of frog eggs in the wild as well).

This is a juvenile of the Yucatan form (I. gemmistratus).

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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, TX

thank you chris. any information i can get will hopefully get me one step closer to my goal.this also helps to keep me away from hots!(much to my girlfriends liking).
thanks again

mike davis

Uh...Not to offend anybody, but the description of Imantodes as a "Slug Specialist" is dead wrong. This is because of confusion with snakes of the very similar genera Sibon and Dipsas (the two being possibly the same genus) which are the specialists in Slugs.

(The photo chrish posted is I.C.)

To my experience, Imanoides is a hardy snake, which thrives on a diet of mainly Anoles and/or frogs. There are records of invertebrates found in their guts, but it is questioned that this might be just secondary consumption(part of the diet of the animal that the Blunt head ate). This also applies to the egg eating records-i.e. gravid anoles consumed.

Imanoides does quite well in a typical "Vine snake" terrarium, temps from 75*F to 80*F are ideal. They drink water off leaves so Daily misting is important.

Blunt heads are rearfanged but the venom is extremely mild.

Information about Bluntheads is very easy to find. Every good book on Central America lists them and there is an excellent write up in;

LIVING SNAKES OF THE WORLD-Mehrtens
ISBN 0-8069-6460-X

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I didn't really look it up or anything, I was just going off my (fading!) memory about the little I knew about Imantodes (which apparently was less than I thought!). Thanks for setting us straight.

>>(The photo chrish posted is I.C.)

Are you sure? I found that snake on the coast of SE Veracruz in an area that should have had gemmistratus. I have never seen pics of juvenile cenchoa that looked like that.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, TX

Chrish, That was a typo...(sorry) your pic is IG not IC...seems my fading brain misses things too (lol)

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I once had a white spotted slug snake (Pareas margaritophorus) that did very well. Its an Asian species that because of convergent evolution, is very similar. I don't know if they any easier to find, but I thought I'd mention it. It was a very cool snake it lived for about five years and died of mouthrot after injuring its self durring a strike. It had an amazingly fast Strike and cheeks for sucking/scooping the slugs up, very interesting adaptation for a snake.

Never saw one of those before, Rick. Cool!

That is an interesting thing about Dipsas too (which I have kept). The front teeth are adapted to allow it to extract snails from their shells.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."