Rinkhals today in Benoni

[Richard Mastenbroek]

Good looking Rinkhals funny Elapids they are

[Sico]

Here is a pic of the male after I placed him in a large cage. He was very unimpressed and was spitting al overthe glass and striking at it (I ended up covering the whole thing with a blanket after the 6th strike in 2 minutes), but the copious amount of venom that he ejected during these 6 strikes... Wow! All I can say is this snake must have some huge venom glands in him.

[Bernice]

What a beauty!

Lovely beasties you found there!

[swazi]

A very interesting post, thanks for sharing. You learn something new every day! I have kept Rinkhals for years and have never seen them spit if not raised.

[Ales]

Why the hell does Benoni have so many rinkhals??

[Sico]

Because they are "Hardcore" like the those of us that live here :P, seriously I have no idea, but if you speak to the "old" timers in the fire departments around Benoni/Boksburg/Brakpan/Springs they have caught tons of them out this side of the world. Perhaps there is just so much open space here, with a lot of marsh land. I know that back in the day, the area around Allensnek and Honeydew etc used to have tons of them, but it has now all been so built up that most of the natural habitat is gone.

[Sico]

Just an update on these two... They are doing well, I was struggling to find toads for them to eat (being away, the wife isn't too keen on lenghty missions in the dark muddy areas!), and they refused to take mice at all. The other night when I was home we had a serious rainstorm, and my lawn was covered in Platanna's (Xenopus), so I caught about 10 of them and dropped them into the water bowl in the cage. Within minutes it was a feeding frenzy of note with both of the snakes stuffing themselves to the brim
And here I always thought Platties were only good for catching catfish...

[Sico]

My wife called me up yesterday afternoon to say that the female has dropped a litter, she thinks around 15, although one appears to have drowned in the water bowl. I assume that these are all out of the this pair of Rinkhals, although my wife did catch another large one two weekends back and I told her to stick it in with the others. Will have to do some sexing when i get back! I have asked her to try and get some pics so i can post them up here as I only get home in a week's time... Will update soon... Ciao

[Boskobra]

EISH.... that is 2 stunning snakes..... i am so jealous where i am sitting!!! you are very lucky to find a nice healthy pair if Rinkhals like that!!
keep us posted on how they are doing...

[Sico]

As promised, some pics of the babies. There are 29 so far (4 were dead) and they all look pretty interestingly marked and coloured. I will get better pics when i get home on Thursday. These guys look very similar to N.mossambica at this age...

[Bushviper]

Wow some really light coloured animals amongst them.

[Sico]

Seems to be. Do you think they will all darken with age?

[marc bt]

Do you think these snakes have a banded gene in them or do all baby Rinkhals have those markings at that age?
What are you going to do with the babies?

[Sico]

I don't know Marc, I have found juveniles a little bigger than this in the same area, but they have looked just like the adults as far as colouration goes. I'm not sure, I will be releasing them, just need to think of a suitable place. I might sprinkle them around, with a few in one place, and a few in another place. There are several suitable areas close to where i stay, I don't want to dump them all in one spot though. Will give it a bit of thought as to the best place for them as far as food goes, vs the likelihood of becoming nuisance adults to established properties and pets/kids. Very few of them will get to be adults, we don't need those killed off by overzealous ignorant home owners!

[froot]

There's a really light one on the rhs with a spectacle pattern on it's hood. Keep that one! Would be very interesting to see how it looks as it grows.