#slipperysmurf

[fractiousrvt]

Many years ago, a super beautiful gold/metallic gold corn snake was found out in the wild. I was wondering if you knew about it and if so if someone was able to prove out a line? I can dig around and find the few pictures I’ve seen if you haven’t and would like to see it

The golden corns have definitely had a long and sordid history. There’s some hets floating around in a couple people’s collections, but only one or two people are trying to isolate it again. Most of these hets are, unfortunately, also het for caramel. While they are not the same trait, and not allelic, this muddies the waters as to which are which from the few offspring so far produced because, as babies, they appear practically identical. The metallic appearance of the original female is likely unrelated to whatever type of anerythrism is at play. One of my charcoals is quite metallic but none of her known ancestors were.

[i-m-snek]

So your DIY tank has been giving me a lot of thought to doing it myself and I wanted to ask what materials you would use so that heat tape and an UTH could be used. I am willing to spend money for “good” materials as this will be her forever tank as it were and I’d like it to last. I’m also interested in but not committed to bioactive, I simply don’t know enough. If you have/know resources for that I’d love to read/watch them.

Ooooh with the way the enclosure is built, it might not be possible for an undertank heater to work since the outside is made with wood. Hmmm. You’d have to get some sort of a plastic or PVC bottom to make that work? 

[i-m-snek]

Is there a reptile blog that accepts freaky stories of reptiles. Like. Urban legend kind, but it turned out to be true?

Hmmm, I’m not sure. Any of my followers know?

[i-m-snek]

What kind of care goes into a scrub python? I’m just curious. What is Tali’s personality like?

So, the first part of caring for scrub pythons (especially if you haven’t owned arboreal snakes before) is learning the body language. For the first few months I had her I could not tell between her “I am curious about you” and her “I am hunger/anger” positioning. It is very similar, because both times she rears up. She also has her stubborn days, where I want to take her out but she clings to her perches. Other days she will come right off and come out :) Her care is fairly basic minus the cage size (which should be HUGE considering she is both a large and arboreal species). 90 degree hotspot, plenty of climbing opportunity, and humidity of 60-80 or so. I only recommend them to people who both own a house, and have someone living with them who can be around for handling sessions when they are adults :) 

[nightelf-queen-blog]

Much pretty. Also. Do you know more Canadian lizard people I can follow? I'm always looking for more.

Aw, thanks! And tbh the only Canadian lizard/herp person I know of now is @herps-and-derps

[kaijutegu]

I know that reply to the Python owner must have been hard for you to write. I'm glad you did it.

It was. It was really, really hard. I don’t do this sort of thing lightly, I really don’t. When I’m giving advice on something sensitive, I follow the principle of loving honesty, not brutal honesty. 

I teared up a lot when writing it. It was difficult to hear, I know, but it was also hard to say. I don’t think OP is stupid; I think that she’s just uninformed and has fallen into the trap of anthropomorphism. I think it was vital to make the post, and the outpouring of support for it I think demonstrates that it was. It took me hours to write it last night, and I only said it because my heart breaks for the snake and for OP. It’s hard losing a pet, and if it was me, I’d want to do everything in my power to make sure it never happened again. Honestly though I’m glad I did it too. I think it’s good information that just... doesn’t get talked about. We talk about husbandry all the time and we talk about enrichment, but how we center ourselves in relationship to our animals and how we interpret their emotional responses... I think this was necessary. 

[kaijutegu]

What kinds of geckos won't drop their tails, or regrow them? I'd freak out if it ever happened.

Pretty much any gecko can drop their tail! Tail-dropping, or autotomy, is many a gecko’s major line of defense against predation. Geckos that don’t readily drop their tails have equally unsettling defense mechanisms; day geckos and halmahera geckos, for instance, slough off their skin when startled. This is not pleasant. However, I’m going through and googling pretty much every gecko I know of- even the less-commonly-kept ones like knob-tailed geckos and pictus geckos- and it seems like any and all of them can lose their tails. Not all can regenerate, but many can. The notable exception is cresties- they often to drop without much provocation and they don’t every regenerate. In fact, no wild crestie adult has ever been discovered with their tail.

[kaijutegu]

Omg! Harper looks incredible! I'm am jealous and would like to ask where you got him cause I love axanthics and he is like the ideal of what I had been looking for.

eThanks! He’s actually a lesser axanthic- (I love axanthics, too, and a second gene crossed in seems to make them keep their colors SO MUCH BETTER) and he was produced by Tom Furr, who is OF COURSE only active on facebook (and even then, he’s not super active). I picked him out at the 2014 Tinley Park NARBC October show- it was so funny, he was the first snake I looked at and I TOLD MYSELF “no, don’t go with the first snake you look at, look at them all” and so I did, I went around and saw thousands of snakes of different patterns- I did two laps around the whole show- and wouldn’t you know it, I did end up going with the first snake I looked at. I’ve only seen one other since; somebody else bred him and he sold within an hour of the show opening- which is a shame because it’s a beautiful morph, what with the lovely blushing. I wish more people were breeding them (I’m sorta looking for a female myself because Harker’s the only one of my animals I’d ever breed because I love his morph just that much).