Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This northern ringneck was found in West Virginia this summer and given to me for our university's herpetology collection. Sorry the pics are so small, I was on a bad connection when I was uploading them. Anyway, I thought some of you might like to see it.

to me it looks a little too wet...

BUT

that things is so sweet....I hope someone plans on keeping a bunch of them and trying to breed them at the school...???

......please.....?

...nice find.......I hope it eats......good luck......
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That container was just for getting it home and I wanted some type of cover for it to hide in. All I could find near our office was some bark and it was damp from a rain. It's in leaf litter now (not totally dry, but not that damp either). It sounds like this snake will be euthanized and preserved in our university collections unless I get it eating and take care of it.

I don't know about the new grad students we're getting this semester, but none of those remaining from last year have much experience keeping herps. So far I've tried a small earthworm for food. I'm trying to leave it alone so it won't get too stressed, but if I check in the next few days and the worm is still there I'll go look for some salamanders. I'd like to get it switched on to something other than salamanders through scenting if possible, but we'll see how that goes.

If all goes well, I'll consider trying to breed it but I've never kept ringnecks before so for now I'm just focused on getting it to eat and keeping it alive. I've read Mike Fedzen's care information on them already, but if anyone else would like to share some tips I'm all ears.

I am no help..I had a few ringnecks,northerns here in Pa,and never had one eat so I left them go quickly ....

......suxx to be killed for a specimen.......bad college.......they should at least give it to someone who could keep it alive, a college or breeder,park, ZOO>....../?

......they want an example of albinism in snakes I'll give them some amel corns......?

......redback salamanders.....not longtailed or two lined...I know the longtailed are what we think killed a snake my friend had...some viper from SA....I forget which one it was...

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I agree would let it go before killing it . Why in the world do that.

AWESOME!!!,.......that's the first and only amel ringneck I have ever seen or heard of!......what a great looking specimen!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Mike Fedzen has some more pics of these guys up on his website:
Link

Why so he does!,....thanks!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Thats awesome!!! What part of WV was it found? I'm in the charleston area and had a hard time finding any ringnecks this year.

I'm not really sure where it was found myself. I work for the DEP and a DNR employee from northern WV told me about it and brought it to me. I've hardly been there myself, but I think the Kanawha State Forest is probably a good spot for finding ringnecks near Charleston. There are normally a ton of them around my house in Putnam County, but I've only come across a few this year.

That is very nice! I saw pictures of one found back in April at a spot where one was found 3 years ago. This doesn't look like the same one though.

I love these little snakes. I was out with my 3 young children this morning and out of the blue my little herping pal said "Dad can we go to the spot with the 'ring snakes' to show them" to my other two kids? The other two had never seen one, and as luck would have it, there were two under the plywood that my daughter flipped!

Good luck with that albino.
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Joe

I just looked back and the ones that I mentioned were albino prarie ringnecks.
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Joe

Haha, I was thinking that was an unusual looking ringneck you posted before I realized it was a prairie. Northerns are the only ones I've got any experience with.

Kevin,
Sorry for the confusion of my post. The two normal photos that I posted here are indeed northern ringnecks that I found in MA. The Albino prarie ringnecks that I mentioned were found by someone in MO earlier this spring, and a few years ago.
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Joe

That's cool-I've never seen one with so much yellow on its head before. They all tend to have uniformly dark faces here.

That's crazy.
A while back I found an albino northern in WV. Maybe they're related? Mine was a pretty decently sized female. Never knew an exact location where she was caught though. Wasn't as interested in what county I found her in, just interested in the fact I found her, ha.

Mine took worms, salamanders and salamander-scented pinkies here and there.

I call dibs on the babies if you ever breed that sucker. =]
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.kingpinreptiles.com

Unreal looking