Past Snakes

[Tyrel26]

thanks for the info. its pretty amazing to see how long these snakes can live in captivity but im sure the diet and close to natural conditions you kept them in is the reason. also, were there a lot of vet visits over the years for these snakes?

with regard to the different color morphs, are there any that seem shorter or longer lived than others? one can read a million papers on the subject but i feel nothing speaks the truth more so than real experience and there are exceptions to every rule of course. I have read that albino animals have a shorter life expectancy than many others, in the wild this is no doubt due to heat absorbution and predation, but i was wondering if this still stands true for the captive snakes.

if anyone else would like to add to this topic please do

thanks for reading
Tyrel

[ConcinusMan]

No vet visits. They never needed one as far as I could tell. Besides that, vets in WA and OR will not treat T.sirtalis unless it's some sort of morph such as an albino or melanistic, ghost, etc. If it looks like a wild sirtalis, they are prevented by law from treating them.

I'm sure many genes, seen and unseen can influence longevity. There's just way to know for sure what genes have what effect in this regard. Natural selection weeds out genes that do not favor survival but it's a different story in captivity. When pressures on populations change, so does the genes that are allowed to be passed on. Genes that cause "good looks" and perhaps survivability in captive conditions could certainly carry hidden effects such as smaller litters, and certainly shorter OR longer lives.

All my wild concinnus litters were very tiny babies (about 5 or 6 inches) and numbers ranged from around 20, all the way up to 50. Yet I hear that snakes in captivity, many generations removed from the wild, mostly have very small litters, but larger babies (7-10 inches). Wild genes might just be favoring larger litters due to high mortality rate. I hear wild concinnus offspring mortality rate is very high. Very few make it to breeding age.

There seems to be a lot of predator pressure on very small one's or very large one's. 90% of the concinnus I can find in the wild are right around 26 inches. Very few found are under that size, or over. I have found them over 3 feet but only on a few occasions. In those few occasions, the snake was easy to spot, and was slow. A 3 foot gravid concinnus doesn't move too well!

[Tyrel26]

Yeah ive noticed from the photos here that the babies are quite large at birth, i posted a pic of the babies i had from a wc pair, they seem very tiny compared to the ones ive been seeing here.

It is very interesting that cb snakes produce larger babies, one would think that 10 large babies would have a higher survival rate that 20 tiny ones but i guess when you are food for basically everything the numbers are what count.

thanks for the info

[ConcinusMan]

Yup. Numbers count in the wild. Believe or not, I've seen 18 inch ordinoides have only 5-7 offspring but they were larger than any concinnus babies I've seen coming from a 3 foot female.

I think the reason why there are far more ordinoides is that they can adapt to habitats that are off limits to concinnus. If the amphibian population crashes, ordinoides can adapt and still thrive, far from water. Concinnus generally cannot. I knew a professor from WSU that told me that they use concinnus statistics to gauge the health of local watersheds and wetlands. Even when these are in decline, ordinoides populations continue to thrive or even increase.

All the rain we've been having lately is going to be good for concinnus. They will have an abundance of amphibian larvae in shallow temporary pools right about the time the offspring are being born. Dry years are bad for concinnus populations but don't affect ordinoides.