concinnus, cannibalism

[JSI]

Well yesterday I found my male concinnus half way consumed by the female. I was able to get the male out and separated them. Luckily I was at home when it happened.

The male was thrashing around like crazy while being devoured but was still alive and so far seems to be fine. He is not that much smaller than her maybe 40cm to her 50cm. Still she is a much thicker snake. They have basically lived together for over a year now and this is the second time she has tried this. This is the closest she has gotten to actually eating him, first time was just a bit to the head and then a bit of thrashing. This time he was half eaten.
Here they are together to give you an idea of the size comparison: female on the left male on the right:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_r4FF0W1-dCM/SyP28fbjdbI/AAAAAAAAJSw/oFS6AkYKRlw/s800/IMG_3753.JPG


So now they are separated and will be permanently.

Just curious if anyone else has encountered this behavior with their concinnus?

Jeremy

[gregmonsta]

I've never heard of this with concinnus before. Had you been feeding them that day?

[drache]

scary
I've never seen anything like that with mine
and I hope I never will
lucky save - congrats

[guidofatherof5]

Nice save. Glad you were there.

[jitami]

Wow. That's crazy! Glad you were able to get them apart. Can I ask exactly how you did that? Like Greg, I'm also wondering if it there was food in their viv with them or if you had fed them immediately before that.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

wow! I have 7 concinnus and I have never seen them do this!

[Snaky]

I also have a few concinnus and my males can easily fit in the females. Luckily I've never experienced this. It's the first time I hear of cannibalism with concinnus.

Did you feed them recently? Or was there still food present in the enclosure?

[ConcinusMan]

It's all that dang inbreeding. No, I'm only kidding. I have to tell you if it happened before, that would have been the last time any snake was kept with her. I've never experienced cannibalism with concinnus. I can confidently keep concinnus with huge size differences together and have never had a problem as long as I seperate them at feeding time to avoid the tangled mess of biting snakes. Also, females giving birth I had to separate because the others were trying to eat the afterbirth, mistaking babies for food along the way. But outright cannibalism? very strange. Perhaps the male had food smell on him?

Those unnaturally red concinnus are turning out to be trouble huh? Anyone else have snakes related to that female? better take precautions I would say.

[Spankenstyne]

Nice save Jeremy.
Clearly the only solution is to send them to me :D

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, good job. I know it's not an easy thing to do. I've actually saved swallowed reptiles up to an hour after the fact but I know it's not an easy thing to do, especially if you want to save both. I hope they are both doing well.

[JSI]

They had not been fed recently, I could check my feeding records but I think it was at least 3-4 days since their last feeding. I also don’t feed them in their “home” enclosure or together.

The first time she tried this was right after feeding. That was more than a year ago; I think it was actually the first time I tried feeding them. Since then it had not happened again. The first time was also very mild. Just a bit and then a bit of thrashing from the male and he was free and left alone.

This last time he was almost a goner, I still can’t believe I was able to save him. Basically all I did was grab the female and give her a slight squeeze behind her jaws to get any teeth lose and pulled the male out. (About 20cm worth of male Garter)
He seemed pretty happy (Joking of course) and wiggled like crazy. So far both are doing fine.

I should add the female has an insane feeding response. She will sometimes get so excited in her feeding bin that she will bite her own body.

Jeremy

[Spankenstyne]

Sounds like she just doesn't play well with others.
Nice save though he was just about done for.

[drache]

I think this particular female may just not be quite "normal" for concinnus

[Quibble]

I think this particular female may just not be quite "normal" for concinnus

Or the male has quite a mouth on him and insulted the poor girl.:D

[mustang]

well...got some guesses
1. snake minstreal cycle
2. she wanted to prove she could play in "deliverence"

[JSI]

I would say she is the one with the attitude problem.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_r4FF0W1-dCM/Slu3jZichjI/AAAAAAAAHfQ/IjGcKTe8zGo/s640/IMG_0652.JPG

Shot from last year but she was always the most "jumpy" of the two.

Jeremy

[ConcinusMan]

Well, there was that one time when I had fed my adult concinnus. I had fish smell on my finger and forgot to wash. My finger was halfway down her throat before I knew it. Maybe something like that happened here.

[De Foezel]

it usualy is a case of i want the food u have
with snakes the food someone else has is "better"
usualy they eat each other while feeding or shortly after.
u sure u didnt feed them?
because when 1 snake starts with eating on side of the meal
and the other 1 starts on the other side
one wil be eaten unless u take them appart
cant think of anything else
cause none of the thamnophis family have cannibalism in their nature as far as i know
grtz richard

[Stefan-A]

cause none of the thamnophis family have cannibalism in their nature as far as i know
T. elegans vagrans does, as demonstrated by my own snakes and there are documented cases of ophiophagy by other Thamnophis species as well.

Here's an especially interesting case, mainly thanks to the photos:
http://forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch.php?id=1692559,1692559&key=2009

[De Foezel]

ok so the only problem in this case in missinformation or rather no information sought on species

[ConcinusMan]

I think this particular female may just not be quite "normal" for concinnus


Seems to be the case in many CB (many generations removed from wild) concinnus. Many are only vaguely like wild concinnus, at least as far as appearances go.

[JSI]

I don’t know why you feel a need to continue to add your negative opinion on these animals that you feel are somehow genetically inferior because they have “Too much red”.

These snakes are F3, so they are not far removed from the wild as you seem to think. It is a very good thing the breeder and good friend of mine is not a member of this forum, he would not take your bashing his stock lightly. He has worked with thamnophis sirtalis concinnus and thamnophis sirtalis infernalis for many years and has not line bred these animals for their colours. He also produces many drymarchon corais couperi, drymarchon corais corais as well as morelia viridis.

I think maybe you should consider other factors you might not be aware of before you jump to such rash conclusions?? How much do I feed them? As with most of my animals I prefer to grow them slowly rather than stuff them so they reach a good size quickly. Over the years I have found that power feeding at a young age has very negative consequence on a snakes total longevity. The result of this is that most if not all of my snakes have a very healthy appetite and excellent feeding response. In my opinion I would consider this a much bigger factor resulting in the event that transpired as these snakes had lived together for more than a year with no incidences.

So please ConcinnusMan, refrain from undermining these animals a third time.

Jeremy

[ConcinusMan]

Whoa, calm down. A third time? first time I was only kidding and said so. Their was no third time. This last time I was only suggesting that if snakes are selectively bred for their color, it's only logical that there could be unseen traits that are being selected unknowingly, such as behaviors. I have never seen wild concinnus that are as red as those. I've been all over Oregon and WA and they are always orange so I just figured they are probably bred for the high red since CB snakes are the only snakes I've ever seen like that. Forgive me if that assumption is incorrect.

I do have to agree with you about the push for fast growth. My last pair of concinnus did reach about 4 feet, but they took their time to get that big (about 15 years) and lived a very long time (18, and 21 years) I would never force an unnatural growth rate. I believe it shortens their lives.

[drache]

I think abnormal behavior can pop up any time - it's random
there is almost always an exception to any rule
I would be careful to ascribe it to any particular factor
some critters are just "different"