Being a big fan of both, and having kept both I'll give you my two cents. Mussuranas are easily the most powerful constrictors, pound for pound, of any snake I've ever worked with.

If you took indigos and mussuranas of equal weight, the mussurana will kill and try to eat the indigo every time. Mussuranas are specifically designed to kill and eat snakes.

What do mussuranas have that kingsnakes don't? In my experience, they are much stronger. They also have rear fang venom. Over the years I've heard several stories about some crazy feat of strength or action a mussurana has done. You never really hear that about kings or indigos. In fact the story that first turned me onto mussies was one of a Clelia chasing down and constricting a Cribo with such force as to break ribs or separate vertabrae (whatever the cracking sounds were). This story came from a famous herpetologist.

Indigos have much more powerful jaws, are more opportunistic, more visually oriented and seem "more intelligent". They're also much bigger than mussuranas. A big bull YTC is gonna be double the weight of a big mussurana.

But none of this makes them more "special" really, unless those traits are what you like to observe.

Doug T



>>inigos vs mussies, i was wondering do mussies have a stronger better constriction ability
>>
>>i also wonder if mussies would eat indigo snakes that are larger then they are
>>
>>last i keep wondering what does a mussie have that a king snake does not have, people act like mussies are so much more powerful then a king snake but what do they have that makes them so special

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