#reptile posts

From one reptile room to another!

Anon I want you to know that you named this animal with a single blow and it was a total fatality for all my other name ideas because

a) I recently learned the correct pronunciation of anole is in fact closer to aioli and the silent ‘e’ style I’ve been using my whole life is apparently wrong

And

b) in addition to this new, false chameleon, I have an actual chameleon, also a rescue.

And his name is Sriracha.

So yes anon, because of my extreme love of sauce pun names, your drunken English bastard language worked and now you must look into the face of Aioli the Anole

This one!

Although I named myself after the Aspidities genus because they’re funny little weirdos, I have been in love with Morelia viridis, the Green Tree Python, since I was probably seven or eight years old. They’re a ‘lifetime’ species for me. And it’s pure aesthetics—they’re just incredibly gorgeous. Even when they’re simply pure green, or lack the blue/yellow/white pigmentation, GTPs always look good. They’re a diurnal basking species, too, so they’ll sit right out in the open in the cage on a perch, looking all fabulous and green and mysterious, whereas most of my snakes spend most of their days curled up sleeping in a hiding spot, so when people come to look at the snakes, the GTPs are always the thing to see. I think they’re so pretty.

They’re also one of those ‘advanced’ species that’s a bit harder to care for and can be tricky to raise and breed, so there’s that nice feather in my cap for having not one but two of them thriving at the rates that they are. And mine are absurdly tame and handleable, despite the species having a well-deserved reputation for defensive behavior—but that could honestly come down to my own experience, as I’d say they still require more ‘reading’ and watching for strike behavior than other snakes. They strike fast so you need to learn them quick or you’ll take a few bites. But my two are absolute babies, which means I have these very sweet, very calm, very gorgeous medium-sized bright green snakes to show off and stare at, and I honestly just love them for it.

As for the second q, I’m not really a huge ‘morph’ person, tbh, because I’m one of those ‘reptile snobs’ who just likes animals the way they look in the wild. The ‘wild type’ is usually my favorite, because I’m a total snake nerd and if it looks like it did in the book I owed as a kid, I’m hooked. There’s so many different colors and varieties in the natural snake world too, so I don’t really see a point in a lot of morphs, and there is a significant controversy over breeding for certain colors or patterns in the reptile community, and it’s growing in concern. There are common ‘beginner’ species that are easy for novices and general businesspeople to breed with little to no training—animals like corn snakes, ball pythons, boas, etc—and they can easily be churned out in massive numbers, which they sadly are. The ‘morphs’ are just a new way to put a higher price tag on the same snake, and sometimes it results in truly harmful long term effects like neurological issues (‘stargazing’ and ‘wobbling’ found in both boas and ball pythons of certain morphs) and heart/liver/general organ health issues. Some lines have fatal rectal prolapse disorders. Some lines are prone to blindness and poor vitamin A retention. I have a ‘sunglow’ boa, which is a mix of a hypomelanistic trait and an albinistic trait, and is an animal worth easily $200-300 on the regular market as a cute baby, but she was given to me for free because she had a massive respiratory infection due to poor handling and husbandry, so just because it has a nice price tag when you buy it or the breeder sells it, doesn’t mean it always ends up in good hands, either. My boa is fine now, but she’ll always be slightly smaller and stunted, too, as a result of this morph, and some find that attractive and desirable. Not me, man, I want a big wild Brazilian boa, around 9’ and thick as a golf cart tire! But that’s overbreeding for you.

It’s just as complicated and nuanced an issue as dog breeding, honestly, and just because snakes aren’t cuddly like dogs doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be something folks are aware of when they look at a cool snake. Sometimes that pretty color can have a much higher cost than just the seller’s cash, and you’d never know, as a novice hobbyist. Now, all that preaching being said, do I understand the curb appeal of a morph? Absolutely! They’re cute! And some of them, like albinos and hypos and general single gene morphs, aren’t really all that harmful. It’s just a choice of how much research you want to do before you buy, for one, and, more importantly, if that research is even available when you purchase the animal. Reptile hobby breeding only really exploded in the last 40yrs of keeping, and it’s a new ‘science’. We still don’t know yet what the effects of breeding for color or pattern will be, but I can guess—lots of other animals paved the way for that. If reptiles go the way of purebred dogs, we may be seeing some really severe and common ailments start cropping up and it would be too late to fix it.

Not a Cuban Knight Anole! A Bearded Anole, or Cuban False Chameleon! A significantly rarer and cooler species. They’re specialized snail feeders, and as such, they don’t often move very much. About 63% of their day is spent inactive, sitting basking in the sun in their native Cuba, like a sloth, which I personally vibe with very much. They’re wonderful little pets, and don’t require much care aside from UVB lighting and decent humidity, and they’re hard to find in the hobby, so it sucks a lot when someone decides to leave one in a cardboard amazon box overnight in very low October temps.

Little fella made it through the night and is up basking at the warmest possible temp he can get this morning! Still hasn’t eaten or had a drink, but I’m hopeful with the warmth I can convince him to try later today.

My cats certainly do, and they demand most of my time. I have cats because they like affection and form social bonds.

Reptiles, however, do not. They’re perfectly content as long as their environmental needs are met and they have access to food or water when they need either. (This is why I scoff when people give away snakes because they don’t ‘have the time’ for them—you don’t have the time to feed once a week and clean a water dish out?) There are some species, like bearded dragons, that appear to have higher social needs, but even that is pretty unstudied and not without anthropomorphism. As long as my reptiles have spacious enclosures, correct temps, and correct humidity, they really don’t need much.

That’s not to say I don’t try to enrich their lives, though. My tortoise lives outside for most of the summer so she can crop grass, get fresh sunlight and explore a larger space. I take my chameleon out to get the sun, too. My snakes are a bit trickier, because the outdoors has to be limited for them, as they can escape too easily, but I do let them out a lot in the summer. In the winter, it’s mostly around the house. They get ‘positive stress’ having to explore a new area that is not their home, and I use that as an excercise opportunity. Every time I clean the cage, the animal gets to wander around the blocked-off reptile room and explore. But their ‘exploring’ is actually in stress—they LIKE their safe territory with it’s known variables, and when left to wander, the first thing a reptile will usually do is try to get somewhere safe like wedging under a furniture item. Now, you may say, ‘well geez Lea that sounds not great for them, why do it at all?’ And you’re right, but here’s the thing—positive stress, as in the kind that requires them to think and move, is a good healthy element to their lives. (Read ‘Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers’ by Robert Sapolsky for more information on why certain stress is positive or negative.) They’re forced to problem solve, to stretch out and exercise more than they would in the cage. And then when I’m done cleaning, they get the nice safe reward of their pleasant home territory where they feel most secure.

Hey pal, thanks for dropping by to ask, because I’m very worried about what that vet told you! There’s a lot of things wrong here. Firstly, a month is NOT a long time for a snake to not eat, even a young snake. Snakes can go weeks, months, even years without eating in the wild! Right now it’s winter so all of my snakes, old and young, are on a monthly eating schedule themselves, as it’s common for their appetites to drop off in the colder weather. This is totally normal and not a cause for alarm, and a snake not eating after one or even three months would not be a concern for me (provided that the temps and humidity were correct in the cage but I’ll get to that in a minute), and there are many steps I would take before taking the animal to a vet. Force feeding is INCREDIBLY risky and dangerous as it is remarkably easy to shatter a vertebrae or break the snake’s jaw—snake bones are almost as light as birds and quite fragile. Force feeding is also stressful and will likely not encourage the snake to eat again, so it is literally only used as a last resort when the snake is at death’s door. I’m not sure what kind of training this vet has had, but that is very alarming that that is the first response they jumped to! Please, please DO NOT force feed your snake and DO get a second opinion.

Personally, before jumping to try to feed the animal, I would want to address why it’s not eating to begin with. A snake not eating is a classic sign that the temperature/humidity gradient of its enclosure is not correct, either too cold, too hot, or not enough space to move from a cooler area to a warmer one and vice versa. How are you keeping this snake? How is it being heated? Proper temps for a corn snake are quite easy to achieve, since they’re a US native and only need a warm area of around 80-85f, with the cooler end of the cage at 70-75f. They do need a heat source, though, on the outside of the cage and it needs to be connected to a thermostat. If you’re not using a heating device, or not using a heating device properly regulaated by a thermostat (you can’t just plug it in and leave it, a heating pad or light can easily go over 140f in an hour, so all heat needs a thermostat or rheostat) then that is the problem right there. Also, the stick-on thermometers (not thermostats, thermometers) that tell temperature that you buy for $5-10 at the store don’t work properly, so you need to check the temp with a laser temp gun ($15-16) from Amazon. I would wager that’s your issue—many beginner snake hobbyists don’t quite grasp the concept of using timers and thermostats to regulate the environment and usually there’s a key piece of info missing somewhere from when you brought the snake home from the pet store, including using those crappy little stick on gauges that don’t properly tell temp. Grab yourself a temp reader, and check if the snake’s cage is too cold or too hot. All one temp is also a problem—because reptiles are cold blooded, they need to be able to regulate their temperature by moving from a hot area to a cooler area, and vice versa. If your tank is all one temperature, or too hot in one end and not cool enough/too cold and not warm enough, the snake won’t eat. Simple as that. I would bet dollars that’s your problem—9/10 times it’s the husbandry that’s the issue. Which isn’t your fault! You and your family are just learning and that’s why it’s good you reached out for help.

For reference, this is how I keep my two corn snakes in separate cages:

You can see the cages are around 4’ long, which gives me a lot of room to play with temp, and they’re not glass fish tanks, so the heat stays enclosed. Also, they’re filled with lots of hides and branches and things to help the snakes feel more secure, along with a ‘humid hide box’ for shedding and clean water, of course. It could be that your snake is lacking one or more of these elements too. A glass fish tank is the common cage used, and that’s fine, but keep in mind how you’ll have to work around that material to keep it ideal for the snake. Glass heats up too fast, and doesn’t distribute heat very well. It also chills very fast too. Expanded PVC foam, like these reptile cages, will trap and hold a temperature at a consistent gradient, but you still need to use a thermostat. I use them for every single cage in my reptile room—each individual animal has its own needs to be regulated!

He is on the mend! Just drank some water (probably his first in days judging by his behavior) and is finally coloring up after his shock—you can see why they call them ‘false chameleons’ with how quickly he changes color.