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Wyrdhaven — Nyx II
Published: 2010-06-21 00:25:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 1706; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 28
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Description
Thought I might post another pic of Nyx, my Mexican Black Kingsnake, to show how iridescent her scales are, especially on her belly.The hand is mine.
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Comments: 61
Cute! How old is she? Looks pretty young to me, but I only have my cornsnake to compare to.
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She's a few years old, and a bit bigger than in that photo now, but she is a little smaller than many her age. Growing slow often means stronger bones in snakes though, so I'm not worried.
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This is a BEAUTIFUL snake.
If I got a snake I would want it to look like this. Is she very tame?
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She is now. She was flighty and a bit nippy when she was younger.
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AH! I love these...im hopefully going to be getting one from a breeder this spring...they are so gorgeous 
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She's beautiful. I almost thought she was a rubber snake at first lol
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About 3 to 5ft is the top size. They don't get too huge, and remain slender, unlike a boa of the same size. She'll never be bigger than I can handle safely on my own.
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So perhaps a bit bigger than a corn snake. Sound manageable for me! I have 2 corns, and not very fond of pythons. I'd consider one of these lovely little slithers as my next snake. She's gorgeous!
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Actually, a good bit smaller than a full grown corn, since I've seen quite a few 5 to 6 ft corns. Kingsnakes act a bit different than corns, but these guys are one of the easiest kings to start with.
If you decide to get one, feel free to ask me any questions you come up with.
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Thanks for the info! If I get one of these, it won't be anytime soon. Two snakes is enough, really. (Two snakes that eat way more than I expected them to.)
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This actually makes me want to get one of this species.
Really beautiful.
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They're lovely, and most of the ones I've seen or held are pretty calm by the time they're full grown. Hyper and a little aggressive when young, but they mellow a LOT.
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I'm doing really well with my Florida Rough Greens. : )
You keep these Mexican Blacks? Do you know if they take insects at all? Like fruit beetle larvae, cockroaches, locusts, basically the larger feeder insects? I'm pretty sure this species whacks itself some mice, but I'm curious to see if they'd take inverts as a feeder as well.
I'm a little iffy depending on sources other than myself for my feeders, y'see. I tend to just grow my own bug colonies and maintain them pretty well. Dunno if I should (or could) do a whole mouse colony, haha. xD
Also, what's the fangs like on these? My Floridians teeth might as well be sandpaper, they're hardly anything.
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These guys are strictly mice eaters in captivity.
In the wild they add lizards to their rodent mainstay, diet-wise, but they don't eat ANY insects that I know of, and given the fact that unlike the rough greens, they aren't insectivores, they wouldn't be healthy if you got them to eat insects.
But, both of mine (the male is in my gallery too) are quite happy with pre-frozen mice.
Their teeth are the standard type for kingsnakes- moderate, but they'll give you a nice little line of bleeding perforations when they get full size. (I know because on of my Sinaloan kings nailed me awhile back.) They hit about 3 to 5ft when adult, and are much thicker than the greens, but lighter than a python. Easy for one person to handle safely, but if you keep them as display snakes you should probably handle with gloves.
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Weird, the local exotics store here has a manager who is a major snake buff. Has his venom license and everything, dunno what he has though, we all tend to keep our collections to ourselves here. But while he's a snake guy, the other one is a major invert fan, with a large collection of spiders, scorpions and centipedes and the likes.
THEY DON'T SELL GLOVES. LOL. Derp?
I'll maybe ask him sometime if he can get any in. I keep an array of different things, but nothing in the collection requires careful handling, so I don't have really anything 'cept tongs, sifts, and a pair of claw gloves, not good for fangs really. :/ I'll ask him!
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Nah, not those sort of gloves. Just gardening gloves. They've teeth, not fangs. Just bigger than sandpaper.
But seriously, no gloves? And he keeps hot snakes? Oy.
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Yeah, pretty much. I know. x_x
He sells the snake hooks though. I seen those in. But if I had anything venomous I'd have the bloody gloves on AND the hook, lol.
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I rather like the spring operated grabber hook things for hot snakes.
Mind you, I'm not in the slightest way tempted by anything with mobile forward positioned fangs. My hot temptations run to rear-fanged and elapids, but not unless I get rich enough for a really fancy set up for them. Then I'll have coral snakes, monocled cobras and a variety of the the rear fanged colubrids.
My chances of getting rich are as slim as they are for most artists.
Seriously though, getting bitten by a full grown kingsnake hurts, and draws a bit of blood, but their teeth are less than 3mm long. More like 1 to 2mm. Long enough to make it painful, but not dangerous. They're just prone to biting if not handled much.
Ironically, the Sinaloan that nailed me recently hit just above my elbow, and I didn't need gloves at all to get her off me and back in her cage. Didn't even leave a scar or anything like that, it just hurt a bit. It's actually the only time I've been bitten hard enough to draw blood, and it would have hurt a lot more if my big black ratsnake had been the one to do it- he's got twice the jaw length, MUCH better aim and longer teeth. Lucky me he's a bit of a softy when he's not hungry.
Speaking of which, today's feeding day.
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LOL, good luck then with the feeding. xD
There's a mix-match of snakes I wouldn't mind having - Western Hognose, GTP, I'd have Milksnakes if I could find the bloody Andean variety, Long-nosed Whipsnake, and I wouldn't mind something bigger, but to be honest, most bigger snakes I look at tend to give you a bit of damage if you piss them off. Also, there's a new species of Tree Viper I wouldn't mind acquiring, not sure if anyones found how venomous it is or not yet. Same with one of the Acanthosaurus' they've just found. For some reason I'm taking a big liking to the Worm snakes as well lately, haha. xp
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I'm in no danger with the feeding- Osiris almost NEVER misses actual food. And I don't put my hands in there, I have a big pair of tongs. Best piece of snake equipment to have, feeding tongs.
My list of wants is long, and wide, but mostly contains kingsnakes & ratsnakes. Only the smaller boids make the list, and a few oddities like the ground snakes (storeria, and the ringneck snakes) hognose, and yes, I've loved worm snakes since I saw my first photo of one. Nobody seems to be breeding them, which I'd eventually like to fix.
Totally not interested in any of the vipers....
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Quite a few people around here (mostly just the hardcore snake fanatics though) would gravitate towards vipers, I dunno what it is. It's like they're fashionable or something. Seen a documentary once where worm snakes come through shipment on the inside of plant pots, in the soil. And then a year or two back my aunt was outside her flat on the veranda repotting, and she was telling me how this big pink worm thing came out the pot and wriggled off her veranda, and how she thought it was an "ill worm" or something, because it kept spinning around 'n shit.
Seriously, I wanted to kill her. Would've been desperate to see what that was, because it didn't sound like no earthworm.
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Yeah, well, fashionable or not, they're interesting to look at, but I don't want to own any. I do have this desire to touch a Gaboon Viper just once while someone has it's head secure. The texture of their scales is so cool, and I know how cool a Western Diamondback feels, so there's a temptation there, but I don't want to own one.
South American coral snakes on the other hand....
I count Elapids as fair game if I ever get enough money for that sort of set up.
I'd have wanted to kill your aunt too. I've never seen a worm snake in person, but you can bet I'd catch it if I did see one.
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It's Gaboon vipers that have that weird belly motion moving along the ground, isn't it? Hah, that was weird when I seen it on a documentary once. It's like its tummy moves faster along the ground than the rest of it does. : D Cute, if they weren't so damn venomous.
Looking through coral snakes I'd have to say, I quite like this one. Hopefully the link works - [link]
Its a morph I think though, because Im not sure of the species. Definately can't be normal natural colouration that, can it?
They sell caecillians here. Rarely, but yeah, you do get them. I intend to get those, very similar to worm snakes, but they're amphibious.
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It's their scales that get me interested in Gaboon vipers. Sooo textural. I'm a bit of a texture freak, if you haven't guessed from the rest of my gallery.
According to the page that pic is on, it's an albino coral. And searching the species latin that was also clearly on that page, we find that it's a Texas Coralsnake, which generally looks like this: [link]
I love Google.
Caecillians are pretty cool. I've seen a few pics, but not in person. I try to stay away from aquatics these days. PITA.
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I think I've heard someone say that about Gaboons before. I'd love to meet one in person, I've met King Cobras, for instance. Bushmasters too. Kings are surprisingly lacklustre, or at least the one I seen was. Maybe it was just old. But yeah, I've always thought it cool how Gaboons move. Awesome snake. : ) I hate you now, because now I really want to meet one, lol. :c
Ahhh right, lol, I was too lazy to look it up. xD I'll keep a note of it, I think that's a wonderful coloration. Huzzah for google!
The caecillians I've seen on sale here appeared to be more aquatic than terrestrial or underground, true 'wormy' species. They were a very light baby blue, with a little face like a shark on one end, and the other end ended in a rudder-like tail. Unsurprisingly, I was in a large aquarists shop at the time.
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The cobras that tempt me are the Monocled, in part due to marking, and in part due to an emerging plethora of morphs.
Looking things up is a bit of a hobby for me. I'm naturally almost viciously curious. About everything.
For instance, did some checking, and while I didn't take the time to run down the species, I did narrow the caecillians you saw to the family Typhlonectidae, which includes all of the aquatic species. Turns out they aren't all aquatic by a long shot, and your aunt could have just as easily seen one of the burrowing types in that pot of soil as a worm snake.
Here's what Wikipedia says about the aquatic family: [link]
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She's gorgeous! I had a male Lavender King, he was *quite* a handful. I love the sheen on her scales, the position and that tongue is a very lovely color. I've been wanting a snake just like that.
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Nyx is actually very calm these days. She was a bit difficult when she was younger, but is mellowing a LOT with age.
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Me too. Which is why I bought a male to go with her for a future breeding project.
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Thanks!
I keep telling her so, but she just flicks her tongue at me. I don't think she believes it.
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Awe I have a Mexican Black Kingsnake too!
I name it Viper. Lol
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she is pretty. and cute. i love snakes.
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Nice! black and opalescent, gorgeous snake! Rather large eyes for a small snake like that, or maybe it just looks like that.
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Combination of the angle and the "she'll grow into them" principle.
Thanks!
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