Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Twin spot rat snake (bimaculata) with eggs.

It's been great seeing so many nice examples of various species from everyone.

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Randy Whittington

Nice bimac, Randy! Do you plan to breed them again this year? This species has proven to be difficult for me to get to reproduce, as I have only gotten slugs so far. Diones have been very easy, in contrast...

Here are a few of mine - all from Terry Cox's blonde line.

Gravid female - laid slugs...

Another female

Male

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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

No I won't be breeding them. Unfortunatly I lost the female two years ago. It was weird. I went to clean her cage one day and she appeared to have injured her spine about 2 inches below her neck. It's strange because I have no idea how she injured it. I've never had a adult show up with what appeared to be an injury of that type and had no idea what caused it. I saw no change after about a week so I put her down.
I was pretty bummed out. She was really nice and laid a good clutch 6 out of the 7 years I bred her.
By the way, great looking diones you posted above.
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Randy Whittington

Sorry to hear about that female - she was very pretty. I am going to guess that she is probably the dam of my '05 male which you produced. Speaking of him, I thought I was going to lose him fairly recently - and I am retiring him from breeding because of the incident. I put him and my remaning female (I lost the top female a couple years ago to an illness, myself) together to begin brumating them, in late December. They locked up, which is common for them - when I checked in on them later, they were sitting in a large pool of blood. The female began dragging the (mostly limp) male around the tub, and I thought for sure he was dying. Later - after they separated, both (mysteriously) seemed fine - weird. I'm not putting that pair together again, but I will use the male in the third pic with the same female...

On the above diones - I don't currently have any, as I gave all of my adults and subadults to friends. But - I do plan to get back into that same line - how's that for back-sliding? LOL I have better pics of some of them - I'll try to find them...
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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

beautiful bimaculata! the male has the same color?

Thanks. The male was similar but not as light as the female.
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Randy Whittington