Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

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Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Contortrix » Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:12 pm

I posted this at venomdoc forum but get no replys there so i figured i'll try here.....


Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:05 am Post subject: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I took some time reading Snakes of Arabia by Damien Egan, great book that i warmly recommend, but when i get to page 111 there's a short chapter about Philothamnus v variegatus.

Continuing on page 112-113 there is two pictures stating to be two different colour morphs of Philothamnus v variegatus.

Here's my issue...

Some years ago i bought a pair of Philothamnus macrops and the female was identical to the picture on top of page 113.

I started to google arround the two different species for pictures, all pictures i can find show both colour morphs as P.macrops.

So either iv'e been wrong this whole time or there have sadly been a photo posted of the wrong species in the book.

Here's some photos i have found when googeling arround.

My old pair:
http://www.animalsabc.com/animals/chord ... lothamnus/


Photos on other sites:

http://www.bio-ken.com/colubrids.htm (Nr 44)

http://www.zmuc.dk/VerWeb/Tanzanian_Ver ... 01856.html

Cheers, Ronny
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Cradle of life » Tue Apr 06, 2010 7:19 am

I believe you have not had any answers to date because your question is a riddle :D Do you have a picture of the top of page 113 :idea: Then maybe we can help.

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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Contortrix » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:32 pm

Yeah, i'll better hook up my old scanner and get the pictures...
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Contortrix » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:43 pm

Here it is, the bottom one is probablya spotted one but it's not looking quite like the spotted ones i've seen before. The top one is identical to my old macrops female.

Image
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Cradle of life » Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:32 pm

Thanks that makes it easy! The top one looks like Macrops and the bottom one P.S.semivariegatus (spelling??).

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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Contortrix » Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:14 pm

Yeah, thats what i belive to, spelling is correct. =)

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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Bushviper » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:45 am

I will try to get hold of Damien and ask him to come and confirm this.
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby damiensharjah » Thu Apr 15, 2010 11:29 am

Hi

That specimen is Southern African, collected, identified and photographed by Wulf Haacke (and probably pickled too). It's not a particularly unusual phase for semivariegatus and I've seen several similar to this. Patterning and colour are tricky methods to id Philothamnus at best, but it's little surprise that different species appear similar. The variation of P. semivariegatus, even within a single locality, can be noteworthy.

Hope it helps

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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby damiensharjah » Thu Apr 15, 2010 5:32 pm

I had a slow connection earier and never looked at the photo links you posted. Now I have. I don't think the snakes depicted in those links bear much of a similarity to spotted bush snakes at all.
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Cradle of life » Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:45 pm

damiensharjah wrote:I had a slow connection earier and never looked at the photo links you posted. Now I have. I don't think the snakes depicted in those links bear much of a similarity to spotted bush snakes at all.


Sorry i have to dissagree with you (or i am misunderstanding you). The bottom pic of the scaned book is definately a spotted bush snake :idea:
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Serpy » Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:49 pm

COL,

The book was written by Damiensharjah,

Damien was refering to the links that contortix provided in his first posts.
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby damiensharjah » Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:19 pm

Ya, just a misunderstanding. No worries.
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Cradle of life » Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:45 pm

damiensharjah wrote:Ya, just a misunderstanding. No worries.


OK good to sort that out - i thought maybe i needed to get glasses or maybe i was getting very old :D
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby Contortrix » Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:05 pm

Hmm, don't know if my bad English makes my head spin i'm a bit confused. I know that the snakes i had (the pictures) are not spotted, they where supposed to be a pair of Philothamnus macrops.

I know that the bottom snake at page 113 is a spotted bushsnake but the top one looks exactly like my macrops female i had (http://www.animalsabc.com/picture/anima ... s-1378.jpg)

in the pictures i have of her she's really dark but as she grew the black disapered and she looked exactly like the bottom snake in page 113. So my question is if i actually had a spotted bushsnake female that i thougt was macrops.

I know macrops is pretty rare (iv'e been trying to get a new pair for years!!!) I hoped someone had some good knowledge and could determain from all photos exactly what specis they are. I belive the book to be right, not acusing anyone to have made mistakes with the book but it makes me unsure if the two species.



Hope you can understand me, my english grammar isn't the best so sometimes it gets pretty messy.

Cheers, Ronny
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Re: Snakes of Arabia right or wrong?

Postby damiensharjah » Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:42 pm

I hear what you're saying Contortrix.

There's definately no question that the two illustrated on that page are semivariegatus. I took most of the pictures myself and sourced the rest personally. As I said, that brown specimen is not an uncommon colour phase of semivariegatus at all.

Whether yours is a spotted bush snake or not, I have no comment. I've never known P. semivariegatus to be darker as juvies and change into adulthood, but perhaps East African Specimens are a little different to their southern couterparts.

What I'll do is I'll forward the photos you posted to Steve Sprawls. He's likely the best guy for East African species, and hopefully he'll put your mind at ease regarding your macrops. I just don't know enough about the East African Philothamnus.
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