thebeardedherper

[thebeardedherper]

Some better pictures of the female lyre snake, Hotsauce. She doesn't like me much right now, but I'll get her to come around eventually.

Lyre snakes are considered to ve mildly venomous, but they are not considered harmful to people unless they're lizard people lol. Their venom attacks the blood cells of lizards. They deliver the venom via a chewing action using enlarged rear teeth.

[thebeardedherper]

Photos from my most recent snake wrangling gig in Las Vegas.

Photographer: Wayne Minert

Model: the lovely Jessica French

Snake: Gozer my ghost boa

[thebeardedherper]

Pitch here shed a couple of days ago so of course that means pictures... he is ½ California king snake and ½ Mexican Black king snake

[thebeardedherper]

Thought it was time for some new baby pics of the gopher-corn hybrids. Now the albinos are all getting ready to shed and the normal just finished shedding. I'm waiting on the other normal to shed before taking his updated picture.

[thebeardedherper]

My hypomelanistic jungle monster-tail boa imperator that was produced by Rainbows-R-Us-Reptiles in 2017.

[thebeardedherper]

A clutch of tiny baby african house snakes I hatched out a couple of years ago. These guys make really hardy captives once you get them up to a size big enough to eat pinky mice. Prior to that I start them out on mouse tails for the first few weeks. They will also eat baby lizards, but those are harder to come by on a regular basis.

[thebeardedherper]

Note different structures adapted to different styles of survival, hunting, etc. The green tree python has very long teeth for hanging on to prey more securely amongst the trees and getting through the feathers of their avian prey. What do you see with some of the others?

[thebeardedherper]

The first picture (blue background) is a beautiful example of a classic Columbian Boa often referred to a Columbian redtail boa. This is boa constrictor imperator, or more recently assigned by taxonomists as simply Boa Imperator. These guys start out with a decent amount of red in their tail much of the time but it almost always fades into more oranges and browns as they mature.

The second picture (green background) is great example of a Suriname redtail boa aka true redtail boa. These are Boa constrictor constrictor and actually keep their red tails into maturity. Also, note the difference in the saddle shaps and colors as well as the base color of the animals. Both animals will like reach similar sizes in the 6-9 ft range.

[thebeardedherper]

Baaaaaaby pictures! Well the gopher isnt exactly a baby, but he is still a juvenile.

Top to bottom left to right.....

California king snake, same california king snake, tangerine albino Honduran milk snake, ½ California king snake ½ Mexican black king snake, different ½ California king snake ½ Mexican black king snake, albino ½ sonoran gopher snake ½ corn snake, great basin gopher snake.

[thebeardedherper]

Just adding a little flare....

[thebeardedherper]

From a photoshoot with photographer Brian Doty of Hunnie Dolls Magazine and Kristine June a couple of years ago. She featured a Malaysian Red Blood python I had at the time.

[thebeardedherper]

Blaze, a California king snake x Honduran milk snake, 3rd generation hybrid feeding on a frozen/thawed weaned rat.

[thebeardedherper]

Ember is getting so big.... she'll be 2 yrs old come October.

Honduran Milk snake x California king snake 3rd generation.

[thebeardedherper]

[thebeardedherper]

I've posted this before, but it bares repeating....

Western hognose snakes are often referred to as rear-fanged and mildly venomous, but they are not truly fanged and not truly venomous. They possess a modified saliva glands called the duvernoys gland that produces a mild toxin. They are also not rear-fanged as is the common myth. They do have enlarged rear teeth they use to pop toads and massage in the toxin which helps them kill small prey, but the teeth are not hollow and do not inject anything so they are not fanged in any way.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1081/TXR-120004739?journalCode=itxr19

[thebeardedherper]

This will be a bioactive terrarium for a sonoran gopher snake. The substrate is the terra sahara blend from biodude.com with a lower layer of sphagnum moss. There are dead oak leaves and other organic materials mixed in along with a cleaning crew of isopods and springtails who will breakdown waste. I will likely adjust the heat by adding another low wattage heat bulb, and I will be letting this sit for a few weeks to give the bugs a chance to get established and the plants time to get rooted. The plant being used is elephants bush.