Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Accounts and photos of non-captive reptiles in their natural habitat outside of South Africa. Try to record with your account details such as time of day/night, temperature, weather conditions, lunar cycle, sex, rough age of reptile, and so on.

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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:03 pm

Ok, having looked through the pics I seem to have mixed up the Dendroaspis pics
here is the correct close up of the D. jamesonii
Image

This is the full shot where I cut the other c/u from, and I am not sure, but I think this may have been Dispholidus typus green phase, if I look at the yellow one in the left of the frame... not sure, anybody confirm? The head shape still isn't right to me, but I recall the guy saying they were boomslangs, and in the background you can see the vague shape of the Thelotornis capensis they had
Image

apologies for the confusion!
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby WW » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:13 pm

Sico wrote:Ok I get what you're saying, What would you suggest that it is then? It certainly looked like all the other mambas... I'll have a look at the other pics I have and post if i have some more...


Now there's a great question... I really don't know. head scalation seems to match Thrasops, but coloration does not, at least not if it was adult. However, I would need to see photos of more of the animal to narrow it down, sorry.
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby WW » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:30 pm

Our posts overlapped.

Sico wrote:This is the full shot where I cut the other c/u from, and I am not sure, but I think this may have been Dispholidus typus green phase, if I look at the yellow one in the left of the frame... not sure, anybody confirm? The head shape still isn't right to me, but I recall the guy saying they were boomslangs, and in the background you can see the vague shape of the Thelotornis capensis they had
Image


I don't think it's a boomslang - they have shorter and more pointed heads, and only 7 supralabials, with the 3rd and 4th entering the eye, not 8, with the 4th and 5th entering the eye, as in this critter. Thrasops seems the best match in terms of head scalation, although they are normally totally black as adults. Juveniles are lighter and show a chequered pattern - perhaps this may have been a half-grown/young adult retaining lighter colours around the head and throat? How big was this snake?
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby monopeltis » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:33 pm

Very interesting snake!!
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby _THEO_ » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:04 pm

Thrasops sp. maybe although the eye seems a little small.
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby _THEO_ » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:09 pm

Eish.. Didn't see the second page.
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Tue Dec 20, 2011 10:00 pm

WW as far as I can remember, it was much bigger than all the other Thrasops. This one was around the 2m mark and much more "robust" in body shape, the others, perhaps around 14 in all between the two parks were all solid black as in the one I showed, much thinner in body shape and more "twiggy" if that makes sense. This one's body style was more in line with that of the Mambas both in length and girth. I'll have to see if Andy got better pics of these snakes, as I am pretty sure he climbed in through the back of this cage to get shots of the Vine snake as well. I'll ask him and see what he has and perhaps that can shed some more light on the matter of these two confuzzling animals... :?:
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby WW » Tue Dec 20, 2011 11:35 pm

Weird. There are not many species of African colubrid of that size, but the evolution of the colour pattern would be the wrong way round for Thrasops....

I'll look forward to some more photos, hopefully.
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:59 am

I'm going to go through Andy's pics later on today and hopefully pull out some more of the two snakes in question. The one snake park has contacted me and said they will happily allow me to go back there and collect DNA samples, will wait and see what number two says. That will be a fun, if not slightly hair raising day...
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby WW » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:18 am

Sico wrote:I'm going to go through Andy's pics later on today and hopefully pull out some more of the two snakes in question. The one snake park has contacted me and said they will happily allow me to go back there and collect DNA samples, will wait and see what number two says. That will be a fun, if not slightly hair raising day...



That would be excellent! But be careful!
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:23 am

HA! Understatement of the year... Trust me I DO NOT want another bite... the last one was bad enough, I might not survive another. I intend to take a bunch of various sized tubes, as well as whatever else is needed, and it will be either well controlled or not done at all. It would be nice if they had more non-venomous stuff, but pretty much everything they have there can make you feel unpleasantly sorry for yourself... Still I think the samples could yield some interesting information, and the guys also know where all the snakes were caught, so we can do a lot of photographs, measurements, weights, sampling etc... who knows what may come of it. Chances like that don't fall into your lap everyday so I reckon it's worth it, and if I can leave specimen tubes there for them, as they get new snakes in they can then do the sampling themselves and keep feeding us the information, once they see what we can use and how to do it all.
Mark
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:34 am

I've got pics of both of the snakes, The black one definitely isn't a wolf snake, and looking at it now I have no idea where I pulled that one out of... my bad, it looks more like Actracaspis or Polemon, the second "pseudo-mamba" as WW so succinctly put it pics are not as good as the ones I have already posted, but there are pics of the "yellow" version in the cage, but I cannot upload any pics at all today for some reason. Can I mail them to someone to upload on my behalf if possible?
Mark
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Re: Reptile Parks Uganda - Entebbe

Postby Sico » Fri Dec 23, 2011 7:43 am

Ok so looking at better pictures, the black snake is almost certainly a Polemon christyi, but we still have no idea what the green snake is... comparing it to other head shots of the other Thrasops it looks very similar, but the body shape and colouration are all wrong, in both the greener and yellower versions of the two snakes in this enclosure. Something that is most definitely going to warrant a closer look...
Mark
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