Anyone here ever keep viper boas

[Tarantuland]

I just got one. Really cool cb 2021 female, the bitiest snake I’ve kept so far

 

[SpookySpooder]

I've kept both Corallus caninus and Morelia viridis. (Photos on a hard drive at home)

Sadly had to rehome them when I went off to college. Very bitey sneks. You're gonna have a lot of fun with that one.

 

[Tarantuland]

I've kept both Corallus caninus and Morelia viridis. (Photos on a hard drive at home)

Sadly had to rehome them when I went off to college. Very bitey sneks. You're gonna have a lot of fun with that one.

Eventually I might get into those. I would love to build them a nice enclosure. I’m gonna do something cool for this one. It was defense striking it’s food last night instead of eating it hilariously

 

[viper69]

Never owned them- quite a few of the arboreal boas are prone to striking- not a snake for me- I like holding mine without issue generally.

The only exception Id make is a Chondro of course

 

[SpookySpooder]

Yeah I'm into Colubrids now. Also boas just not vipers. Still colorful with nice patterns, very active and sociable too. Each one of mine comes out and greets me when I come by to do maintenance. I have a striped one that likes to nip, but it's fangs are so small it's like getting jabbed by a toothpick, and no venom. It's just food aggression though, when I pull her out she calms down right away, since they're used to handling. They're fossorial though, so you can't just wrap them around your arm, you gotta actively support them or they'll wiggle to the ground.

The biggest benefit for me is their living quarters are very compact. If I had the space I would totally get back into vipers. They are a very rewarding species to keep, and you'll get a few specimens that you can hold.

Food/territory aggression varies amongst individuals so you'll have a few that lunge and nip when something enters their range but you'll have a few that once you hook them and pull them out, they just sit there.

I wouldn't wanna get bit Corallis boas either... have you seen those teeth?

Here's ms. bitey deciding she wants the feeder tongs as well.

(stripe x paint het x anery het)


Hungry boy, her future suitor. (HRP anery x Stripe het)


Here's my favorite baby girl. I obtained this one from Rufus. Her parents are spectacular, just out of my budget. I hope to be able to express her double het Gene X in the future.




She thinks she's a tree boa. I always catch her climbing things. She's actually really good at staying in your hands. (HRP x Gene X double het)


This girl is my oldest, her quirk is she drinks multiple bowls of water every. single. week.
3 year (Paint x Gene X)

Here is my only named snake, Udon. He was the runt of his litter and the only snake I've ever had to force feed. He's quite the little derpy boy and comes out to the front everytime he hears me. He likes going on walks more than all the other ones.


Here, he has finally learned how to hunt for the first time, still unsure how to take down prey... only 2 years after birth...

(Paint x Gene X)

Every baby sourced from reputable breeders who practice conscientious breeding practices. Everything is unrelated and has been recrossed with donor genetics.
(The big female was a gift from the breeder couple I rehomed my viper with. They got me into sands lol)

Not a big fan of paradox morphs personally.
Can you tell which two traits I'm trying to express with this group?

 

[Tarantuland]

Those are stoke nice looking sand boas. I got one myself. I like colubrids a lot too- hognose and rat snakes especially

 

[SpookySpooder]

Which kinds do you have?

I'm looking at getting my first hognose sometime soon. Just waiting to get home and build a new rack

 

[Tarantuland]

I got a handful of western hogs and a Kenyan sand boa among other stuff

 

[The Snark]

Makes me wonder about what makes snakes bite happy. From entire families like the vipers to interorder or intraorder of genera or species. Some ptyas within a species are bite happy, some very hesitant. Or the krait which are normally not bite happy at all except a period of time from sundown to around midnight when they might as well be in the viper family. A much more complex conundrum than can be easily explained.

 

[SpookySpooder]

I wouldn't know how to answer for all bitey sneks in the wild, as that can range from territorial/defensive behavior to hunting instinct but in my captives it is almost always food aggression.

Snakes in captivity who do not get handled and get fed in their "territory" get conditioned to strike at food/tongs/hands anything that comes within reach because it is a conditioned response rooted in base instinct.

You can break this instinct/poor conditioning by feeding them in separate bins and by getting them used to being removed from their territory by handling them briefly. I have noticed some specimens are more insecure about being removed from their homes and tend to panic. That can lead to defensive bites, but if you correctly handle them, even those specimens can be conditioned to relax once handled.

You do get the odd viper that just wants to bite everything and won't let go though. I've heard accounts of tree vipers just lunging at passerby for no apparent reason. (I think it's territorial behavior though) These snakes don't have an elaborate warning system like the Rattler so they probably can't tell you that you're too close to their tree until they bite you.

Could be genetic as well. Seems like some snakes just wanna bite everything.

 

[The Snark]

To clarify and confuse the matter, perception and spatial awareness get into the bite happy confusion to varying degrees. Cobras for example premeditate, from the spitting varieties that are more prone to react to any perceived threat out to Hannah that is decidedly a selective sniper - except when stepped on. Then all bets are off and they fire the gun like a viper.

 

[SpookySpooder]

Definitely. I can observe that both spatial awareness and sensory perception play a big role in deciding when to strike. In the case of my colubrids, first it is detecting vibration of the substrate, then a visual inspection by popping the eyes above ground, then a flick of the tongue to taste whether it is familiar prey or something else.

I mess around with my boas sometimes and will lightly tap the substrate imitating prey to lure them to the surface, once they reveal themselves, a flick of their tongue often is the final behavior that determines their next action. If they smell my finger, they will either crawl out to be handled or retreat back in. If they smell the tongs, they lash out.

I will admit it's not exactly the smartest practice, as my nippy one has tagged me for doing this. But in my defense, she jumps the gun and strikes from below the substrate without confirming her prey and will often miss.

She'll bite anything inside her enclosure ABOVE the substrate, but if I stick my fingers under the sub and take her out, 0 defensive behaviors, she doesn't even try to run.

I'd love to read a paper or watch a documentary about this now, lol.

 

[The Snark]

But in my defense, she jumps the gun and strikes from below the substrate without confirming her prey and will often miss.

She'll bite anything inside her enclosure ABOVE the substrate, but if I stick my fingers under the sub and take her out, 0 defensive behaviors, she doesn't even try to run.

Typical ambush predator mode.
Of note, opheophagus snakes take advantage of this, often employing it as their primary prey capture method. Kraits exemplify, and in close proximity to a dangerous enemy on the defense, this explains their extremely powerful neurotoxin venom. Bitey to the max victim to paralyzed in seconds.
Interestingly, Hannah doesn't have a powerful venom but instead employs brute force, hanging on like a bulldog. This trait is employed all the time when they hunt their most common prey, amphibians.

I'd love to read a paper or watch a documentary about this now, lol.

Hear hear. But done by an expert without sensationalism.

 

[SpookySpooder]

Bitey Snakes - A Dissertation

Many reptiles of the suborder Serpentes have been known to exhibit extremely fast and unpredictable bite reflexes. In our study, we seek to discover the catalysts and stimuli that illicit bite responses from 300 species of Serpentes.

In various control groups, we poked, prodded, and called them silly names in our attempts to provoke them into biting. Our results show that calling them "legless lizards" elicited a rapid bite response with 86% certainty, with shaking your derrière a close second, eliciting a bite response 74% of the time.

That's all I got before my entire research team quit.

 

[The Snark]

Serpentes

I checked twice. No Vote for deformative transdigression. And your study failed to include the subspecies of thermally enhanced crotalus irritabulus which tends to strike 103% of the time.

 

[SpookySpooder]

That would've been a different experiment--concluding with my research team deceased instead of resigning en masse