Updated Pictures of My House Snakes!!!

[Aes_Sidhe]

I was almost heart broken when I noticed that my flash in my camera isn't working anymore... but fixing Phones for living I figure that "hard reset fix "almost" everything" so happily i can make pictures again.

Last week all of them shed so iI've figured that I'll snap some new photos.

ENJOY!!!

Boaedon lineatus male "Marduk":





Boaedon lineatus female "Ishtar":



Black phase Boaedon fuliginosus male "Seth":



Black phase Boaedon fuliginosus female "Nephthys"

[Navy]

Gorgeous!

[Simple Man]

Looking good buddy!

Regards,

B

[cmack91]

Since your labeling them lineatus, i'm assuming you did the scale count? If thats the case, i'm kinda bummed you weren't able to prove them as virgatus, but regardless they're still awesome And looking as good as ever (I'm jealous lol).

[Aes_Sidhe]

Yep Scale Count done and I found description in Archive of British Museum of Natural Science labeling virgatus as darker than lineatus (almost blackish and with yellowish belly) so I'm in 99.9999999999999999999% sure those are lineatus.
Also both Marduk and Ishtar are on small adult mices now (Marduk is a pig he is on diet now that means 1 mice every 2 week) so hopefuly i gonna have first babies this fall if not early spring for sure

[Emilio]

I love the Black phase Raf.

[Jyson]

I really dig the black phase ones as well. Don't know much about house snake but I've always admired them from a distance.

[cmack91]

What do you think the chances are of one of them being natural hybrids? At least in the photos Marduk looks to be a few shades darker than Ishtar. And I recall you saying something about him being the size of an adult female lineatus. And with their ranges overlaping I feel that there is a chance of the two hybridizing in the wild. What do you think?

Also, good luck on getting some baby housies

[Aes_Sidhe]

What do you think the chances are of one of them being natural hybrids? At least in the photos Marduk looks to be a few shades darker than Ishtar. And I recall you saying something about him being the size of an adult female lineatus. And with their ranges overlaping I feel that there is a chance of the two hybridizing in the wild. What do you think?

Also, good luck on getting some baby housies

That cross my mind... but I believe that that we have to deal with 2 different species or 2 subspecies of lineatus.

Different sources label 2 different geographical ranges...

Erik Paterson - young gentleman from Scotland and author the only book about care of House Snakes states on Wikipedia that Range of this specie:

This species has a wide range stretching from Tanzania through Central Africa as far as Uganda

Then couple internet reptile databases label they range :

Mali, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire, except in the south), Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Gabon

From pictures I seen west African Stripes have more Triangular heads less buggy eyes and grow bigger. And most of them Keep they coloration in shades of brown.

As of size Catalogue of Snakes in the British museum of Natural History states for size of lineatus specie: total lenght 870mm tail 110. not specyfing male or female...


East African Stripes have more rhomboidal head more buggy Eyes and more color phases. I've seen Brown with white Stripes Red with white stripes and sub specie with is called Mt. Kilimanjaro House Snake with is black with white stripe:


PHOTO COURTESY OF Chantel from SA Reptiles forum

This is Why this snakes are so fascinating to me... we still don't know enough about them... a lot of them are easy hybridize and lack of knowledge makes people in US mostly unintentionally label them totally wrong...

This is Why i want step up in Herp community and make sure that my animals gonna be label right represent right and hopefully on the way i will educate some people .

And Believe me everybody who worked with pythons before and from some reason cant or don't want to keep them anymore...will find this little colubrids very attractive and rewarding to keep, watch and breed.

[cmack91]

Subspecies would make more sense. Hopefully someone will get them figured out some day. Anyway, I cant wait to see some little Marduk x Ishtar babies. Do they lay eggs or give live birth?