Rufous Beaked Snake - African Colubrid?

[jjspirko]

Here is a better shot of Boomer fangs (off Brian's site) as you can see these guys have fangs that you just can't lump in with Cateyed, Rufous, Diadems, etc.



In their case rear is just barely behind the eye and the fangs are highly mobile and they can open their mouths about 180 degrees. They are not something I ever plan to work with outside of an institution.

[jjspirko]

this is fascinating info
if the Boomslang's fangs are not hollow, how does it inject venom? Does it bathe the area and just get in the wounds that way?

Colubrids are so interesting

Missed your response. They have very deep groves that with the massive penetration allow venom to be very effectively delivered. They do sort of chew in venom like other colubrids have to they can just get in a lot more a lot faster. I don't believe they have any "pressure" to injection but I could be wrong about that. They are not a snake I have studied much in all honestly along with cobras and mambas they are one of the few snakes that honestly intimidate me a great deal. I don't like something that can hit me in the face from the ground if it is PO'd at me for some reason and kill me.

[fishmommy]

I'm with you, bud!

I prefer my hots in 2-D

[joepythons]

QUOTE=MelissaFlipski;730387]This one is for anyone, but maybe Jack Spirko can help the most...? I read about it on his website blog in an entry called "Five Underrated African Snakes" (scroll down on http://www.housesnakes.net/blog/). It left me wanting more information. Sounds like an awesome snake to add to our collection... MAYBE.

Tell me ALL you know.

Thanks! [/QUOTE]I dont know much about them other then they are weird looking .A freind in California had several of them.

[MelissaFlipski]

Jack, do you have any rufous beaked snakes? If not, do you plan to get a breeding pair? Just wondering. And can I responsibly own one with young children in the house? And thank YOU for your blog!

Joe, tell me more about your friends' rufous beaked snakes. Did you ever handle them? Etc., etc.

[SPJ]

I agree they are an anomaly but unfortunately they do get grouped into the "rear-fanged" category because of the delivery system.
Just didn't want anyone to think these were the type of animal that is typically thought of when you hear the expression rear-ranged.
They may not have the traditional hollow hypodermic type fangs of elapids and vipers but they are very effective at envenomating.

[joepythons]

Jack, do you have any rufous beaked snakes? If not, do you plan to get a breeding pair? Just wondering. And can I responsibly own one with young children in the house? And thank YOU for your blog!

Joe, tell me more about your friends' rufous beaked snakes. Did you ever handle them? Etc., etc.

I just observed him while he was cleaning the tubs they were in.In my opinion they were ugly so i did not have any interest in them so i paid little attention .He had way to many other cool snakes for me to help out with .

[jjspirko]

Jack, do you have any rufous beaked snakes? If not, do you plan to get a breeding pair? Just wondering. And can I responsibly own one with young children in the house? And thank YOU for your blog!

Joe, tell me more about your friends' rufous beaked snakes. Did you ever handle them? Etc., etc.

Mellisa,

I don't own any and while I had planned on getting a trio I have reset my goals and chose not to. I will probably buy a single one as soon as I get all my new caging built for my boas and my pythons.

I have even gotten rid of most of my House Snakes and placed them with Don Sonderberg at SMR. I am going 100% into education both as a writer and speaker with my Herp Activities. I have determined that if you want to breed snakes you have two choices.

Go small and highly specialized. It is very hard to work with a colony of 20 odd snakes of a given species and care for 20 other various species all with different needs. So if I wanted to stay breeding on any scale I would have to just work with my House Snakes.

The other options is go big and full time like Cathy Love, Bob Clark, etc. The people that produce a thousand or more animals a year and have it as full time employment can adapt to many species.

It just got to be too complicated and I want lots of variety in my collection. The only pairs I have now are a pair of Black Milks, a pair of Spotted Pythons, a pair of Skaapstekers and one pair of Cape House Snakes. I did the two Milks just so I always have one for shows. The Houses I do plan to breed the one pair. The others I would not have bought pairs if I got them today. I have just decided to keep the extras for now. In the future I may trade or sell the paired animals to do more variety.

Now um on your actual question, about kids and Rhamphiophis personally I don't have any problems with it at all. I would make sure the animal is secure and the children had 100% no access unsupervised to them but I would do the same with any snake even corns or balls.

I have handled many of these snakes and they are just docile creatures and no threat from a toxin stand point anyway. I would say a house cat poses more danger to a child then a Rhamphiophis.

Of course that is just my opinion and people must choose for themselves. Why not go to a big Herp show and handle a few to get a better understanding of them?

[Skiploder]

Link to a SA Forum. Set search to "rufous" and have some fun. There is at least one account of a guy getting a reaction after letting one chew on his arm a bit.

Worth checking out the threads for some decent pix and additional info.

http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/se...p?mode=results

[muddoc]

I don't know much about them, but I can tell you that Celia at Exotics by Nature had one for about 5 years. It was a very interesting snake and I enjoyed looking at it and handling it when I was at there shop. You may want to shoot Celia an e-mail, as I am sure she could shed some light on this species for you. Or try a PM here, her screen name is wetceal.