Hey everyone,
A friend of mine does animal education demos with reptiles. Now that the general public isn't so concerned about the reptiles of Iraq, he was making room by selling some middle east snakes. One of these was the Telescopus dhara, a cat eyed snake. I have an interest in cat snakes, so I took it.
There is very little info out there regarding this snake. From watching the way it moves, I'm assuming it is arboreal. I don't know if it will prefer to sleep in a hide box or in branches. I'll provide both and see what is chosen. Best I could do last night was provide a clear plastic hide box. It doesn't provide much shelter and that may be why he hasn't used it. When he was under my friend's care, it always used a hide and no branches were made available.
I'm going to keep the animal under moderate humidity and 1/3 of the enclosure over a heating pad. He's currently in a small critter keeper type box while he is in quarantine. I don't think I'll be misting him, but I really don't know. It seems like they come from semi arid montaine regions.
If there are any comments regarding his care and the care I'm currently providing, please make them.
Also, I have a question about their venom. I read an old post by BGF while doing a search where he commented about the venom. I believe he said that the venom yield on a 30cm T. dhara was much greater than that of a 2m D. boiga, but the rear fangs were tiny and posed no threat to humans.
I was wondering if any new material has come about since that post. I didn't note how long ago it was made.
The little bugger did bite me once. I was trying to get him into a pretty small container to soak as part of a mite treatment. His whole mouth appeared to make contact for less than a second on the side of my finger. It took him another 2 seconds to dislodge his front teeth on the top jaw. After looking at the bite marks, it appears that only the front few teeth on the upper and lower jaw were even able to penetrate the skin. I see four little dots for the upper and lower jaw. Nothing past these front teeth left a mark. He also didn't chew.
On a side note, he reminds me greatly of my amazon tree boa in behavior and use of the tail. I'm interested in giving him a live pinky to see if he can envenomate it and how long it takes. If I end up doing this, that will be the last time he eats live. He's quite used to being fed frozen.
Later,
Dave
