My first snake (when I was a kid) was a hognose.Originally Posted by MarkS
Many years ago back in the 70's I used to have a lot of aquariums in my room and I'd go to this tropical fish store in Duluth that also used to get other interesting animals from time to time. I remember once when I was there they had this glass case on the counter next to the cash register. It was naturally planted and had a little tree with a lot of branches in the middle and wrapped around in the branches was this really pretty snake that was long and skinny. It had a pretty steep price tag but I was pretty fascinated by it. I asked the guy behind the counter about it and he said he didn't know much about it but it seemed to be really curious and was always out moving through the branches of the tree. He said that it had a really funny name. It was called a 'boomslang' we both had a good chuckle about the name and I left the store. I later heard that it wouldn't eat and eventually died. I guess in a way it's good that nobody bought it. I swear that I was impulsive enough back then that if I had the money, I probably would have bought it without knowing anything about it but that it was a pretty snake.
A couple of years later, I wanted to get a second snake. I saved up my money all winter shoveling snow out of driveways and decks and had my dad drive me to the pet store to pick out a new snake.
They had a pair of beautifully colored snakes in a glass tank. For fifty bucks, I bought the pair. They were a male and female yamakagashi (later found out to be rhabdophis tigirinis - Japanese spp.).
This was the seventies, and no one knew anything about these snakes.
It was later discovered that these were venomous snakes, with a hemorrhagic venom similar to that of dispholidus typus - the boomslang.
It was also discovered that these are on of the world's only poisonous snakes.........but that came much much later.
They were the first snake I bred - and sold the babies to local pet stores that carried reptiles.
When I was about 17 years old, I came home from school and my mother told me that a person from Scales and Tails had called and that I needed to call him back. When I called him back he told me that there had been a news article about several deaths attributed to these snakes and that I needed to pick up the babies that I had dropped off a few weeks before.
To make a long story short, I have had these animals in my collection for over 30 years and have never had one offer any to bite. I've been bitten by more pits than any of the rear fangers I keep.
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