Striped Keelback

[JD@reptiles]

Hey all. Heres a pic of one of my new snakes. Striped keelback (indonesian garter snake 'xenochrophis') anyone work with these species before? i figure they are a fish and amphibian eater by the looks of it.

Take care
Jordan

http://www.ssnakess.com/photopost/data/509/562keelback-med.jpg

[Katt]

Wow, that is one smart looking snake!

Very cool Blondie!

[Nicky]

wow very nice snake Jordan!, I was going to buy one from Kyle did u get to him first lol?:P:)
Kayla

[JD@reptiles]

nope these aren't from kyle.

[Nicky]

lol oh well suppose someone else beat me to him, nice pic though, I have heard thier fish eaters best of luck with him:)
Kayla

[JD@reptiles]

they are hard snakes to get started. oh well. still a neat little rear fang.

[lolaophidia]

I used to keep them back in the late 80's early 90's (I had a few different Keelbacks then). They ate fish out of their water dish (usually rosey reds or other feeder minnows) and were extremely docile. Mine never attempted to bite or musk. Eventual cause of death was parasites (wild caught snakes- go figure). Back then we didn't have any info on them and there wasn't a reptile vet in the city to treat for parasites. Neat little snakes, love their belly patterns. Also- I think they are egg layers- so even though they call them garters, they aren't even close.

[JD@reptiles]

thanks for the info. but aren't Thamnophis and natrix and xenochrophis in the natricine group? i am going to try some fish tonight. i will let you know how that goes.

[CamHanna]

According to the EMBL database Xenochrophis are Natricines.

http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/~uetz/families/Colubridae.html

Great snake BTW.

[JD@reptiles]

Thanks Cam.

[lolaophidia]

Yes but with this as clarification-
"Incertae sedis" indicates that the systematic status or composition of these subfamilies are unclear.
It's the egg-laying that makes them un-garter like in my opinion. I read a paper on it a couple of years ago (but couldn't find it on the web yesterday to link for you). I just waded through a bunch of German sites this morning- no dice on the breeding paper.

Good luck with the little snake- fish should do the trick for you. Watch for thiaminase build up when feeding fish to snakes- just like with garters ;)