Got snakes?

[Lasiodora]

I am now told, the scale structure of the upper lip of Corallus Caninus is defined and seperated from the rest of the head. The nose is rounded and the scale band extends across the nose.

With Morelia Viridus the nose is flattened in a triangular shape, the upper jaw scales/ridge is much less defined and has no limiting ridge at it's upper extent.


Now to contradict things, Morelia rarely has any dark scales. Corallus is commonly blotched with dark blue or near black scales.

I would not count on color alone to identify these species. Morelia viridis colors can range from solid yellow, blue, green and yellow, and even specimens with plenty of black or white scales. These colors are found in wild M.viridis and have been some colors have been bred for through selective breeding in captivity. C.caninus colors also vary from individual to individual. There are even color differences within the same species in different locales.

If you compare the head you will know the difference between the two immediately. Plus Corallus caninus gets heavier and longer than M.viridis.

Here's a photo for comparison:

-Mike

 

[Lasiodora]

I will not speak in general but only from personal experience.
Cobras are not snake eaters by preference.

King cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) are. Ophiophagus literally means snake eater. It was given this name because it includes snakes in its diet. They prey on everything from rat snakes to cobras (including other king cobras) and kraits. They will also feed on other reptiles and occationally include mammals.

 

[Sheri]

Dude, those are some nice pics and the snakes are beautiful.

There are several snakes referred to as cobra - which is why 'round these parts, we use the scientific names for the animals we speak of. Where are you from?

The experienced hots keepers here will tell you that no venomous snake should ever be trusted nor treated as predictable. Well, the experienced ones that avoid being tagged, anyway.

 

[rattler_mt]

easy ways to tell green tree pythons for emerald tree boas, all can be seen in Mikes pics

Emerald Tree Boa(EBT): few large scales between nose and eye when viewed from the side
Green tree python(GTP): lots of tiny scales between nose and eye when viewed from the side

ETB: "pits" or heat seaking organs along the whole upper lip and on the rear of lower jaw
GTP: "pits" or heat seeking organs at the front of the nose and at the rear of the bottom jaw(mainly note that they are absent from the rear of the upper jaw)

like has been said, look online at a bunch of pics of both and it soon becomes easy to tell them apart.

 

[softturtle]

Huh? Crotalus is a genus of rattlesnakes....the snake in the picture is a Green Tree Python (Morelia viridis). Never heard them called "dog snake" before.

In south america, natives call the Amzon Tree Boas and Emerald Tree Boas dog headed boa or snake.

 

[Bedlam]

Post up more pictures!!

 

[The Snark]

You folks are a wonderful wealth of information!

To take things in order.
The irridescent little darling is /probably/ the sunbeam snake, Xenopeltis unicolor. (The new world version being the Loxocemus bicolor). I have some pics now and will further examine it today and get him/her labeled.

Their 'crotalus' CORALLUS caninus is most likely a Morelia viridis, green tree python. I will check this out as well and try for some better shots of his head. I wonder why and how a South American slang name got attached to an Asian snake?

As for the king cobra being a snake eater, that appears to be a matter of availability as much as choice. The specimens here given a choice between other snakes and frogs and small rodents invariably pick the latter two. So as an unscientific hypothesis, the king might eat other snakes out of availability alone, not necessarily out of preference.

Sheri, I'm from southern California originally. I'm more or less a native of Thailand now. Yes, our kings are Ophiophagus hannah. I have gotten out of the habit of using the proper Latin names as nobody around here understands English very well, let alone Latin. There is also a tendency to hodgepodge scientific names which at first drove me crazy but then I tacitly have learned to accept.
This area: roughly equidistant between Laos and Burma, high hill country of northern most Thailand, nearest city: Phrao. This is considered the cobra center of Thailand. The king and monocellate appear to be the most common. From casual observation, I suspect they may be the predominant species of all snakes in several large areas here. The Siamensis, black and white spitter is less common and the Isan spitter only occasionally is found.

And now, something interesting. The cobra may have the best hearing of any snake. The theory has long been that sonic vibrations pass up the body of a snake into the bone around the 'ear' area. Of course that doesn't work well as soft tissue can dampen sound waves. The present theory here is the hood of the cobra, a rigid cone shape of muscle, is an excellent sound wave receptor. While the eyesight of the cobra is very keen, most of it's hunting is in grassland areas with limited or no visibility. Thus the possibility of a highly developed directional 'ear' to help not only locate prey but possibly direct a strike with significant accuracy.
As a snide comment, I have been observing a couple of local scientists working on this theory. When they were trying to determine what sound waves would be heard the easiest I pointed out, when face to face with that stare and hood, it's really hard to make any noise that doesn't come out sounding like a frightened rabbit. :}

 

[The Snark]

Keeping hots - a mini blog?

Dude, those are some nice pics and the snakes are beautiful.

There are several snakes referred to as cobra - which is why 'round these parts, we use the scientific names for the animals we speak of. Where are you from?

The experienced hots keepers here will tell you that no venomous snake should ever be trusted nor treated as predictable. Well, the experienced ones that avoid being tagged, anyway.

This is where I get to be opinionated to the max. When I got tagged by a rattler, trying to get the little monster off the road and not become a pancake, it felt like a bee sting. To the 75th power. One fang hit my shin just above the top of my boot. I suspect it would have felt more comfortable to lie down on the road and let cars drive over my leg. As a result of the bite and the antivenin I slowly developed a severe allergy to bee stings and red ant nibbles. Most recently, unthinking, I tried a local delicacy that had ant larvae in it. The anaphylactic reaction was nearly instantaineous. I have also had to work with various venemous happy's as a lab tech.
And so, I am the grand self proclaimed authority of keeping hots. :worship:
People who keep hots and get bit. It happens for two reasons.
1, the biter got loose. You are too stupid to live as you haven't taken every measure under the sun to keep it contained. Repeat getting bitten until you are no longer with us.
2, the bitee got in the way of the biter under 'normal' circumstances. See #1 for the appropriate remedial action. :wall:

To be a little less cynical and critical. I can understand there is a desire to keep a dangerous animal. A thrill or whatever you care to call it. But first and foremost, you are keeping it. It, more than likely, doesn't want you. So you are imposing your will upon another creature that definitely has a different take on life. Is your relationship with the animal symbiotic?

But to the point. Sheri is right. The big question comes in in the form of self examination. Why do you want to be in the proximity of an animal that is a hazard to your health and maybe life? You can never trust it.

I learned how to handle hots in a two week crash course. The mechanics are simple. In that I had to learn so quickly, I had an advantage over people who take years to learn the proper procedures. I hadn't learned to become complacent yet. The two weeks was just enough time for me to realize I did not want to do it and as a general rule, people have no business voluntarily staying in such close proximity with dangerous animals. This was wandering around my mind as I had to daily fuss and bother with a large pile of rattlesnakes.
During this time there was a brush fire in the mountains. At the camp where I was living we had a bear come down and start foraging trash cans. One evening we had a large group of campers. I went out for a 'patrol' and encountered the bear in the picnic area. He was actually between two groups of kids and a very real hazard. I was heavily armed with a rifle specifically purchased because it could stop a bear.
So there we stood. Two lethal predators faced off and checking each other out. My encounters with the rattlers kept going through my mind. This was entirely different. It wasn't master and captives, we were equals. Did I really have the right to contain or kill that animal? Of the two predators, I realized I was in the wrong. The humans had placed themselves in the way of a creature only doing what was natural.
That is the key point. In order to truly appreciate animals, just keeping their physical bodies in containment is not enough. The animal is an integral part of an incredibly complex system, not just a mobile object to be fed and observed. That entire system which that animal effects and lives within is as relevant as an individual animal in it. Remove the animal from the system into an artificial environment is, honestly, a self centered form of demonstrating dominance, no different than when two alphas square off and one assumes a submission posture.

Hot keepers are welcome to flame me. But please take into account I understand how you feel as well.

 

[The Snark]

Identified

Morelia viridis it is.

 

[The Snark]

All those in favor of pythons becoming vegetarians raise your hand!

 

[The Snark]

Hot enclosure VS angry cobra

(That's 1/4 safety glass)

 

[The Snark]

Read my .... pit

 

[The Snark]

The problem with pointing out your friends snakes have ticks is, guess who gets to remove them?

When we noticed this guy had a tick, we heartily felt he could darn well live with it. At well over 15 feet and having consumed 3 wives, he can stay a parasite infested hermit.

 

[The Snark]

I don't care if it's 50 feet tall and smooth as glass, I'm climbing this dang wall. Now give me a boost!

 

[Bedlam]

That picture of the glass is amazing. POWERFUL!!
Really great and interesting stuff you're posting! :clap:

 

[The Snark]

Cobras are powerful animals

That picture of the glass is amazing. POWERFUL!!
Really great and interesting stuff you're posting! :clap:

I have intervied several unusual cobra strike victims around Thailand. It seems children are the most common victim.
Pa, at age 4 to 6 was struck in the face by what was believed to be a monocellate. The zygomatic bone (cheek) was completely caved in and had to be reconstructed. At 22 years old the scar and bone displacement was still clearly visible. No envenomation occurred.
Tan, at age 4 was struck by a king cobra at about the middle of his humerus (upper arm). At a guess he suffered a greenstick fracture. His parents were unable to seek medical attention. He was 30+ when I examined his arm. The deviation from a badly healed old fracture was readily apparent. No envenomation occurred.
Choo, at age 3 was struck where the ulna meets the carpus by a 'cobra'. He lost motion in his hand for nearly a year and still, at the age of 40, has limited range of motion. (Due to the extended initial debility I suspect some ligaments were torn completely free from the bones or were severed.) The bones were never x-rayed. Whether the injury was confined to connective tissue or if he suffered from fracture(s) is unknown. No envenomation was noted.


From observation. A cobra strikes from a verticle plane. That is, the front part of it's body is raised vertically with the rest of the body coiled or extended. When it strikes it tenses the muscles running down the length of it's body. This normally produces the distinctive downward and forward strike. Occasionally, especially when the animal's body is mostly extended on the ground in the opposite direction it is striking, a large portion of the body straightens out and becomes rigid in what has been called an extended strike. So essentially what you have is a pole taking a downward swing. Keep in mind, that pole can be up to 10 feet long or so, can weigh more than 20 pounds (sometimes a lot more) and can move, as one expert described, at the speed of a swung baseball bat.
Why envenomation doesn't always happen. The strike of the cobra is in a downward arc, pivoting from where it's body meets the ground, or in the case of an extended strike, it's body describes a long curve. The motion is always in a downward direction to some degree. The cobra with mouth wide open has it's fangs pointing roughly forward. As it's head describes the arc the fangs point more and more downwards. Naturally, any object beyond the arc the fangs are describing will be missed or struck by the nose or top of the cobras head.
Don't underestimate that head for delivering force. This mature king's head I estimated around 3 1/2 inches across. The hood at the broadest that you can see here is about six inches across.

 

[The Snark]

Hot enclosure

This is the typical enclosure for keeping the larger cobras.
The cage itself is 2 meters by 2 meters. The area around it on all sides is kept clear. Inside, the 'home' more conducive for the reptile(s) to reside in is isolated in the center and the area around it is entirely clear of debri and obstructions.
The lower half of the cage is fine wire mesh to prevent rug rats and similar marsupials from sticking their fingers in the 'bite zone'. The cobras cannot strike above 2 1/2 feet or so the way this area is designed.
The upper half is 1/4 inch wire mesh. The small wire size is to prevent idiots from throwing things at the inmates.

The door is purposely made large enough for two people to enter side by side. One mistake people sometimes make is having a small access door.
The general idea is the door is normally never opened when the animals are outside their center 'home'. When the door is opened for feeding and cleaning you always have two personel. One handler and one worker. The rule being, one pair of eyes always on the snakes.
Should an animal escape, the cleared area around the enclosure facilitates recapture.

The larger spitting cobras are kept in sunken concrete enclosures similar to small swimming pools. The walls are about 4 feet tall which is above spitting range.

 

[The Snark]

Baby hot enclosure

Cobra young are almost exclusively arboreal. This enclosure turned out to work admirably.
The containment is concrete, six feet deep, three of which is above ground. It is about 20 feet across. Inside the enclosure is a concrete lined ditch around the entire perimeter which drains off the rain water. The center area is dirt in which several dwarf trees were planted. All the progeny of the snake farm except the spitters and pythons, poisonous or not, are placed in this enclosure once about 18 inches in length. At present there are about 80 snakes inside, 3 or 4 of which are rat snakes and the rest, cobras.
(The spitters can zap onlookers from the trees and the python kids are capable of inadvertantly constricting their friends.)
I would mention, this is not a perfect enclosure. Two legged idiots are able, by extending arms, of coming in strike range. However, cobras generally don't like to strike while in trees.

 

[Midnightrdr456]

Oh yea i know what your saying about Kings reaching very large sizes, and the power they have. I just read in numerous books that Kings are almost exclusively Snake eaters, and saw it on animal planet too, but cant say anything from experience.

As for keeping one, lol that about a 1 in a million shot for me, it would just be a dream to be experienced enough and capable to keep one, its not something i ever plan to actually do, but I still think of all snakes they are the most impressive and beautiful.

 

[The Snark]

Oh yea i know what your saying about Kings reaching very large sizes, and the power they have. I just read in numerous books that Kings are almost exclusively Snake eaters, and saw it on animal planet too, but cant say anything from experience.

As for keeping one, lol that about a 1 in a million shot for me, it would just be a dream to be experienced enough and capable to keep one, its not something i ever plan to actually do, but I still think of all snakes they are the most impressive and beautiful.

As I mentioned, all the cobras here will munch a frog or rat before considering dining on each other.
Entering those enclosures for taking pictures and de-ticking scared the crap out of me. Call it old age wisdom or whatever, my reptile handling ability has severely diminished with age, not improved. I'll leave it to you folks to snuggle the monsters.