First Mussurana

[lmtrej]

Well after wanting one of these guys for quite some time I finally picked up a male Mussurana at the Hamburg, PA reptile show this past Saturday. He weighed in at just 25g.

Sunday night was feeding night so I decided to give it a try. I offered him a small f/t pinky mouse of of hemostats and he didn't show much interest. I decided to take a little fresh shed skin from my Tx rat and wrapped the pinky in it and tried again. Within five seconds he nailed it and vigorously threw all of his coils around it, talk about a feeding response. One he uncoiled the pinky it was gone in a flash.

He's very alert and active when out of his tub and I'm excited to start handling him once he's settled in and eating regularly.

Here are a few low quality cell phone pictures.

At the show

[jason_ladouceur]

Very nice. A friend of mine has some of the golden phase ones and I like those but that one is very sweet.

[lmtrej]

Jason, thanks for the kind words. Is there any chance that you could share a few pictures of your friend's Mussurana? As best I can tell mine is a Boiruna maculata (formerly Clelia clelia). If your friend has some in a golden phase than I'd guess that they might be Clelia rustica, I'd be interested to find out more.

[lmtrej]

Also here is a paper that I came across which I found to be pretty interesting. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?scri...000900001#ape3

[Annarose15]

Gorgeous!

[jason_ladouceur]

Jason, thanks for the kind words. Is there any chance that you could share a few pictures of your friend's Mussurana? As best I can tell mine is a Boiruna maculata (formerly Clelia clelia). If your friend has some in a golden phase than I'd guess that they might be Clelia rustica, I'd be interested to find out more.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures. But they are Rustica. His collection is filled with amazing stuff. South American hognose, lots of barons racers (green, blue and brown phase), Rufus beaked snakes, African sand snakes, and bunch of boiga. The list goes on and on lol. I'm not sure he is even sure of all the species he has at any given time. But from what I remember the Rustica were feeding on rodents and fish pieces. Very interesting species at any rate.

[Evenstar]

Very awesome pickup!! Now that my thirst for Angolan pythons has been satisfied, these are at the TOP of my wishlist...........

[valhalha30]

Oh my! That's rather cool looking!
Now I have one on my wish list

What's the latin name of the one you adopted Imtrej?

[Blackyote]

Gorgeous animal. Hope you have fun with him!

[lmtrej]

valhalha30, as I said in my second post the species name is Boiruna maculata . This seems to be the most popular species of Mussurana available in the USA. And yes I think he's rather cool looking as well

Evenstar, that's a very smart decision to have these at the top of your wishlist, I don't think you'll be disappointed.