Spilotes pullatus

[Roman]

Hello,

after my short introduction in "New to the forum? (http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/new-forum/)" I would like to show you some of my snakes...

I keep 2,1 Spilotes pullatus (Tiger snakes). I got my first male in 2009 and another pair October last year. All three of them are captive bred in Germany. Currently I keep all of them in the same enclosure. All three are about 2.8 m (thats about 9 ft) long. They are verry allert, but in no way aggressive.

Here are some pics...

The enclosure, all three of them and my first male

Roman

[brylecc1989]

Really cool snakes and nice pics!

[Jason_Hood]

Beautiful!! What size is the cage??

Jason

[Rogue628]

Nice snakes! And I love the set up! That's amazing!

[alessia55]

Not sure if housing them together is a good idea; but someone more experienced in tiger snakes might be better at chiming in about that.

The enclosure looks phenomenal though! :eek: How big is it? How do you control temperatures and humidity? What is the enclosure made out of? Did you make the enclosure yourself? Looks great!

[Roman]

Hello,

the size of the enclosure

backside 2.5 m (8.2 ft)
frontside 2.0 m (6,57 ft)
depth 0.90 m (2.95 ft)
height 1.5 m (4.92 ft) plus additional 0,3 m (1 ft) for a top cover where the technical components are located, so total height is 1.8 m (5.91 ft)

It has an aluminium frame and all sides which are not glas are PVC (I hope this translates the same as in German)

I use 2 HCI 70 W (metal halide lighting??) for lighting and in addition a 50 W spot that emits some UV-B.

There are two heating panels, basicly each a heating cable within a metal frame. They are located above the front glas doors. On each panel is a small fan attached which blows the warm air down into the enclosure.

The original plan was to have a humidifier, but this one is (not yet) installed.

I have a combined thermostat and hygrostat, the thermostat controlls the heating panels, the hygrostat is currently out of action.

In combination with the lighting I get a temperature range from about 25 degrees C (77 degrees F) and 30 degrees C (86 degrees F).

Humidity is controlled by the plants :rolleyes:, I just have to spray some water in the morning and have a humidity of 90% plus, which decreases to about 65% until next morning.

The enclosure was built by a friend of mine who owns a reptile shop.

I will post some more pictures this evening.

Roman

[Jason_Hood]

Wow sounds very nice!! And the translation is easy to understand. I love this species and can't wait to get my animals up to a size like yours.

Jason

[Kettennatter]

I love the enclosures, especially the thought and the effort you put into it. At first glance it looked more like an exhibit than an enclosure. Very nicely done.

[UwabamiReptiles]

Awesome setup for some awesome snakes. How do you go about feeding them, do you have to separate or can you just feeding them at the same time supervised?

[Will0W783]

Those are very nice-looking Spilotes, Roman! I have a large LTC female myself. My girl is a real spitfire and strikes at everything, but isn't too bad once she's out of her cage. They are great display snakes. I've never owned more than one at a time, so I can't comment on the cohabitation. I know it isn't generally a good idea with most species, but some species (namely those of the genus Echis, and mambas) do much better when kept in groups than when kept singly.

[Roman]

Hi everyone,

thanks for the positive feedback so far...

Here are some pictures taken when we assembled the enclosure

As you can see, only the base and the top cover were already assembled, all other parts were just put together


http://i.imgur.com/pdHM8.png

http://i.imgur.com/rT5Om.png

http://i.imgur.com/JJdLX.png

http://i.imgur.com/A1AVE.png

This is my friend Thomas, who built the enclosure

and finally the finished enclosure with plants and my first male Spilotes right after he moved in...

http://i.imgur.com/5RBD1.png

Roman

[Roman]

and here it is as it looks like today after 14 month of use

http://i.imgur.com/DeVgw.png

http://i.imgur.com/Pd4pw.png

http://i.imgur.com/lhknO.png

http://i.imgur.com/jFj9k.png

@administrators/moderators: I could not insert the images directly from my photo gallery using the "Insert Image" button, the pictures where not shown. Maybe you could change the links so that the images are shown within the post... Thanks

Roman

[alessia55]

Roman, I'm figuring out your photos right now. I'll need a few minutes to do it.
Edit: finished.

[Rogue628]

Really nice work! Thanks for sharing the build! It's amazing!

[Roman]

When I planned the enclosure I had a pair of Spilotes in mind. As I mentioned before, I got my first male in 2009. When the enclosure was finished I was looking for a matching female. I was very lucky to find one, but it came only as pair, so I had two males and the female. I was a little worried but decided to give it a try.

I keep them together since 9 months and there were/are no problems at all with one exception I would like to discuss in a separate post. Basically their behaviour is similar to other snakes which are kept together. They ignore each other most of the time, sometimes they lie together at the same spot or hiding place.

Spilotes is a territorial snake, so it is necessary to keep them in pairs for a long time for successful breeding. i hope my pair will mate next year.

Feeding them works good with the right timing. I tried to separate them first, but when I put them in a feeding box they did not respond very well, either it took very long until they ate their rat or they did not eat at all. I feed only frozen or prekilled rats. My female prefers to lie on the cork tube in the right corner of the enclosure. So I wait until one male is in the left part of the enclosure and give him his rat. As soon as he starts eating I give the next rat to the second male. The female comes last. Spilotes are voracious and jealousy, so I have to supervise the feeding as long as the rat is completely swallowed. After having eaten their rat the snakes move around for some time in search for more food but are not aggressiv against each other.

[Roman]

As I mentioned in my previous post, keeping my Spilotes together works good, they are in no way aggressive against each other. However, during January (about one month after I had put them together) I could watch the first male biting the second male.

I watched how my first male was following the second male and was biting it in the lower third of its body. It was definitely not a hunting bite, the bite was only
short (maybe a second or so) and there was no attempt to constrict the
other male, there were only those short bites. I watched this behaviour
several times, it stopped about 4 or 5 weeks later in February. Since then I could not watch it again.

I strongly suppose that my old male is trying to defend his territory
against the “intruder” during mating season. Another observation I made was my old male rubbing his lower jaw on several branches in the enclosure and the new male flicking his tongue and sniffing these spots. I suppose the old
male was marking his territory.

It does not seem to be a general territorial behaviour, it did not occur bevore January and did stop in February. I will get another enclosure of the same dimensions as my current one minus the left corner, so it will be a "normal" rectangle (2 x 0.9 x 1.5 m/ 6.6 x 2.9 x 4.9 ft). This is for the second male and hopefully another female. I will completely equip it but I am curious if the same behaviour will occur in January again. Either way I will separate both males beginning next year.

I could not find any references about this behaviour in any
literature available to me, neither about Spilotes nor any other
colubrids in general. A fellow snake keeper I spoke about this told me
that adult male Morelia viridis might even kill each other if kept in
the same cage, but he had never encountered such behaviour in his
colubrids. So I am really curious what will happen in January.

[Jason_Hood]

[QUOTE=Roman;767679}

I could not find any references about this behaviour in any
literature available to me, neither about Spilotes nor any other
colubrids in general. A fellow snake keeper I spoke about this told me
that adult male Morelia viridis might even kill each other if kept in
the same cage, but he had never encountered such behaviour in his
colubrids. So I am really curious what will happen in January.[/QUOTE]

There is actually a German documentary on Montpellier Snakes that shows this behavior


Here are a couple of links to a German film in two parts about Montpellier snakes, the footage is amazing.
part 1 Abenteuer.Wildnis.-.Der.giftige.Koenig.der.Provence.part.1.wmv (http://www.mediafire.com/?j62k6rdju6p362p)

Part 2: Abenteuer.Wildnis.-.Der.giftige.Koenig.der.Provence.part.2.wmv (http://www.mediafire.com/?ogazn7sxlicrx1a)


Jason

[shaunyboy]

Awesome setup for some awesome snakes. How do you go about feeding them, do you have to separate or can you just feeding them at the same time supervised?

i always split my carpets when feeding,imo it me saves worrying about them fighting over prey,if one snakes finishes eating before the other

to the op
great looking snakes mate

cheers shaun

[Roman]

@Jason: Thank you for providing the video, I did not know it until now. I read about the complex mating ritual of Malpolon monspessulanus where the male offers some food items to the female. I also knew that males would fight each other but I had not known that they would actually bite each other.

So the bites looked similar to what I saw with my Spilotes. I am not sure if it was really a combat, because the new male did not fight back but did only try to get away. There was not the typical parallel gliding besides each other or trying to press the head of the opponent down, but it could have been a combat bout.

@shaun: Normally I would separate my snakes for feeding them, but with Spilotes this did not work very well. It took my female several hours before she even considered eating the offered rat and the second male did not eat at all.

[Ivanator]

That enclosure is amazing! I seriously thought I was looking at a picture in an exhibit at the zoo!

Hopefully the biting stops soon, if ever. I don't know anything about this species of snake, but I'm pretty sure the constant harassment is stressing the other male out a lot. Have you thought about putting in a temporary divider in until the new enclosure is finished?

[Roman]

@Ivanator: The biting did stop mid February, since then I could not watch it any longer. Both males often share the same hiding place or the same basking spot, there is no pushing or shoving as far as I can see and definitely no biting any longer.

The second male will get his new enclosure beginning next year.

Roman