November 17th, 2007 Jack Spirko
One of my great sources for animals in the past has been Dr. Neil Ford of U.T. Tyler. I have hand selected a few of my animals from him and acquired some other lesser known species from him as well. Dr. Ford runs the Ophidian Research Colony at UT Tyler, a snake laboratory that he made an official research lab in 1989, allowing it to become self-sustaining. The Ophidian Research Colony snake lab was established after several years of scientific research on reproduction in snakes, a result of which was a surplus of animals.
The Ophidian Research Colony now supplies captive-raised snakes to other scientists around the country and these scientists explore a variety of concerns affecting humans, including spatial learning, environmental toxins, retinal damage by lasers and embryological development. During these years of research Dr. Ford has worked extensively with Lamprophis species.
He contacted me on Friday to let me know that he has a surplus of animals available with a total quantity over 60. He is willing to sell them in large lots as follows
- Take all 60 for 10 dollars a piece, that would be $600.00 total
- Take a lot of 20 for 12 dollars a piece, that would be $240.00 total
- Take a lot of 10 for 20 dollars a piece, that would be $200.00 total
These animals were all hatched recently and are a variety of colors and patterns. Most come from wild caught parents and are first generation captive bred with the parents collected just last year and coming strait in from Tanzania. At this price of course you don’t get to pick your colors and patterns but Dr. Ford will ensure that all shipped animals are feeding prior to shipment and will sex them for you as well.
Here is a picture that shows the variety of colors, patterns, etc. you can expect to see in a group. Note some really cool chain, spotted and striped patterns are evident
This is a great opportunity to get started with a huge variety of house snakes at a very low cost. With the mix of genes and fresh wild blood there is no telling what dedicated breeder could turn up over a few years. I have run across large lots of snakes like this before but never from a quality facility like Dr. Ford’s at this price, nor with a guarantee that they have all been properly sexed and are feeding. I generally don’t advertise other breeders stock for them but because Dr. Ford has been so helpful in answering my questions about House Snakes over the years and because this is such a cool opportunity I decided to share it with my visitors.
If you have an interest in these snakes please contact Dr. Ford by email, at nford@uttyler.edu
~ Jack
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November 6th, 2007 Jack Spirko
Sienna (which means reddish brown of the earth or clay) just laid a nice clutch of 9 eggs from her breeding about two months ago with “Cash” one of our red male breeders who always produces for us. Sienna was so swollen I was starting to worry that she might be egg bound, she actually laid a single egg about a week ago then laid 8 more today. Her eggs are now cooking in one of our Hoverbator incubators and should hatch around January 4-6th of 2008 which should make them our first new babies of 08!
Here is a pic of the eggs all settled into the incubator,
Next here is a picture of Sienna who is now a lot thinner and resting. She will be on a power mouse diet soon getting back into full form for her next clutch. She will probally have yet another clutch without a second breeding. She is a beautiful gal and I am sure her babies will be real lookers.
The babies should be available around Jan. 15th once they have at least 2-3 meals in them.
~ Jack
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November 3rd, 2007 Jack Spirko
“If these are dotted house snakes, then where the hell are the dots”? The question came in an almost angry email from a fellow lover of the African House Snake. I did not get angry and in fact I understood his indignation. Only a few years ago I had responded almost the same way when Mike of North East Exotics (who’s site seems to be down so I can’t link to it) from Canada contacted me about this very subject. I had posted an article on the old house snake blog about breeding issues between L. capensis (the cape house snake) and L. fuliginosus (the common brown house snake) and posted a picture of one of my male reds and he contacted me to say it was actually a L. maculatus or “dotted house snake”.
This seemed almost like sacreligious! I mean everyone knew these snakes were Fuliginosus, heck there was still a ton of debate that Capensis was a separate species. The reality as I have learned is the vast majority of house snakes that have been imported in the past few years and sold as L. fuliginosus are actually L. maculatus. I am about to lay out a case for you on this species issue and I think when I am done it will be pretty clear that indeed there are “dots” on these snakes and they are certainly very different in many ways from the common Fuliginosus.
Let’s start out with something everyone can agree on right now, a picture of a Lamprophis fuliginosus, here is a nice head shot. Now I don’t know anyone that would object to calling this animal a L. fuliginosus. There are a few traits to note with this snake. First note the very thin eye lines that are common to the brown house snake. The eyes of course have the typical vertical pupil that makes house snakes so cool and that beautiful sheen is visible on the head.
Additionally look at the lack of any real markings around the nose, the stripes in front of the eye just sort of fade to nothing. If we were to look at a full body shot we would find that this snake is also void of any real body pattern, just a nice shade of brown. Of course this species comes in colors from greenish, to red, to black and other shades. Again there is nothing revolutionary here in calling this snake a L. fuliginosus is there? So now that we are all in agreement that the above snake is a L. fuliginosus I think the rest of this article will be a real awakening for some. Honeslty now that you have seen a Fuliginosus does this snake look anything like it?
Indeed when you look at these two species side-by-side it is almost impossible to make a case for them being the same species. On maculatus look at the head and note the very prominent eye lines which continue all the way to the snout. Unlike L. capensis you will notice that the eye lines also continue past the neck and are adjoined to the body pattern, where as L. capensis typically have a break between the eye line and the body pattern. If you look at the body pattern you begin to see where the original taxonomists came up with the term “dotted” and you can see that young Maculatus are often very highly patterned. As they age this pattern typically fades a great deal and it is easier to confuse them with Fuliginosus. Yet even adults have the very different head pattern and you can just about always see the body pattern if you examine these animals in good lighting.
Recently I came across the following map that is from an article written by Barry Hughes and is reported to be the actual work that elevated L. capensis to a full species. Unfortunately I only have pictures of the pages. While the article focused heavily on the differences between capensis and fuliginosus I found this map quite interesting. My understanding is that Barry compiled this map while traveling in Africa and researching house snakes. There many instances of L. maculatus on this map so we know they are common through out much of Africa.
The other thing to note is that the largest concentration of maculatus come from the Somalian Horn. As it turns out many of the snakes imported from Tanzania are actually harvested in Somalia. To me it is clear we have a third species that is commonly brought into the U.S. and is probably causing hybridization and some fertility issues. This picture was taken by Don Shultz at Mfezi.com and you can read the entire article at this thread on his forum.
As for the “dots” perhaps this picture will help with that issue. When we hear “dotted” we tend to think of an obvious spotting pattern. Yet there are clearly some dot like patterns in L. maculatus. As you can see the body pattern has some clear circular component to it and as they repeat down the body you get a subtle “dotted” effect.
To me the fact that we have three species that are commonly called simply L. fuliginosus has answered a lot of questions, explained a lot of breeding and sterility issues and frankly explained why every picture of a L. fuliginosus in any book I have ever read looked nothing like the snakes I started working with almost 5 years ago.
~ Jack Spirko
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