It has been well over 15 years since I tried to hatch snake-egg the last time, but I am going to give it a go this year again. Got eggs from one of the most beautiful Cloubrids in Europe, the Leopardsnake
Zamenis situla. This species is known to have rather small numbers of eggs in their clutches, usually about 2-5 eggs/clutch. This female is really large, about 120 centimeters compared to the normal size around 100 centimeters, and the clutchsize for her 2 years in a row is 10 eggs! The incubationtime is somewhere between 60 - 80 days, depending on the temperature.
Some pictures:
Z. situla eggs.
The female..
I also got some eggs from Aegean four-lined snake,
Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri, witch is the smaller islandform. The inland form reaches about 180 centimeters, but this subspecies becomes only about 120 - 130 centimeters in length.
I didn´t expect any eggs from the pair I keep, as I thought that they needed another year of growing first. As they are quite shy, I don´t see them more then about 10 seconds a week, I was surprised to see that the female was really fat. I put in a box with
Sphagnum-moss in their terrarium, and it took only about an hour for her to enter the box and start digging around.
Since it was quite late, I decided to leave her for the night, and lookid in the box when I got home from work the following afternoon. And what do you know.. 4 eggs in the moss.
Some pictures:
The female..
The incubator:
Linear Mode
