Meet Aphrodite

[kibakiba]

She was caught today, has an injured lip and is the most beautiful garter I have ever seen. Hence the name Aphrodite. She's the sweetest little thing, and has some big sad eyes. She has orange flecks all over her stripe. She's probably a year and a half old, she cant be more than 2.

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/Aphrodite2.JPG

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/Aphrodite.JPG

[RedSidedSPR]

BEAUTIFUL!! i love her!! Good find!

[ScimitarX]

Nice and dark and shiny. I love her already :D

[guidofatherof5]

You are right. Beautiful.
Can we get a photo of the lip problem?

[kibakiba]

Why, thank you! I can tell she'll end up being a very light orange or yellow colour, which mixed with black is beautiful. She's actually really tame. When I first held her, she was a bit skittish and musked a bit, but she calmed down really fast. By the look(and feel) of her, she JUST shed, helping her beauty shine through ;)

[kibakiba]

Sure, give me a few minutes. It looks kind of like a scar, its a purply colour... She drools a little bit on that side.

[RedSidedSPR]

Never heard of a snake drooling...

[kibakiba]

She started biting when I tried getting a picture, so I could get was this... I don't want to bug her anymore.

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/Aphroditelip.JPG

[RedSidedSPR]

So much for nice and tame :p

[kibakiba]

Yeah, but think about it, I'm 10,000 times her size, she wants to rest and then I pick her up and manhandle her, trying to get a picture. I'd bite, too.

[RedSidedSPR]

Yeah, but not tame yet.

Do you know for certain she's female?

[kibakiba]

Yes, her body shape is 100% female, and her tail. With northwesterns after their first year, they get different body shapes.

[Mrs N1ntndo]

She sure is pretty.

[d_virginiana]

Very pretty!

[kibakiba]

Well, she night be male, now that I take a hard look at the tail. It's hard to tell, though. Northwesterns are too small! Haha. That's okay, if she ends up being male, I'll just name her after a different Greek god. I got a video of her, it shows her lip a bit. She's pretty much just missing the scales on her lip. It looks like it was scabbed over, but the shed took it off. I'll get the video uploaded soon.

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[kibakiba]

I posted it somewhere else, but here's another video of my beloved Hades. Ain't he just the sweetest? :D
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[Laura]

Lol bless him :P He seems to appreciate the taste of your fingers!

[kibakiba]

He does! He takes every chance to nibble on them. He bit my lip a little while ago... He opened the wound on his lip a little, so I was putting some ointment on it and looking it over. I guess he wanted to be twins! :D

[PINJOHN]

great post Chantel keep us up to date with his development

[d_virginiana]

Haha.. Adorable. I love how he's just chilling out for a minute there and then it's like "oh, I think I'll bite something again" :D

[kibakiba]

Well, you know, he has to power up that super biting attack of his. He cant just keep biting and biting constantly. He seems to look up at me with his mouth open when he cant bite just yet. "I'll get you in a minute or too! Just... Sit still. Don't move and let me rest before I nibble on that finger of yours!"

[kibakiba]

Hades ripped the scar open a little on his mouth. There was some blood on the care fresh. I've been putting ointment on it and it's healing up really fast. Do snakes scale grow back? I'm asking this because he had two scales missing off his lip when I caught him. (I counted his scales on both sides, and only two were missing on the injured side) And now, it's mostly healed with one scale missing, and what looks to be a new lip scale. It's white, shaped like the lip scales and doesn't rub off when ointment is put on his lip with a qtip.

[guidofatherof5]

I do believe the grow back but it is a slow process. Happens over many sheds.
Here's a interesting read on scales.
Snake scales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_scales)

[RedSidedSPR]

Yikes, hope it heals up...

[kibakiba]

Hades hasn't shed at all. I did notice his little scarred area starting to get smaller. I figured maybe some skin was growing over it. Upon close inspection (close enough to have my nose and lip bitten by him :rolleyes:) it was an actual scale. He's a really healthy little snake, despite a little bit of muscular weakness(maybe he's making up for that in his nips, hehe :D) and a very skinny body.

[kibakiba]

Hades ate for the first time in my care. I was feeding my frogs some cut up night crawler, which they hate and I had a lot left over, so I decided to feed my smaller babies and while I was holding Azul (he was eating while sitting in my hand) waiting for him to finish swallowing the worm, I noticed Hades pop out of the carefresh. I offered him a worm piece. At first he wasn't sure if he should grab onto it or not, but he eventually latched on. I noticed he was more calm when I was near the tank than he usually was. It was very cool to be able to see that he's coming to understand that I wont hurt him.

[guidofatherof5]

That's good news.;)

[RedSidedSPR]

Glad he's eating, that's awesome!

[kibakiba]

I was checking on Hades today, he had a red spot on his injured lip, he slipped through my fingers and bit my lip. He then proceeded to bite all over my hands, enough to break the skin in 7 different areas. My boyfriend and my mom both hate him now, my mom says to flush him down the toilet, and my boyfriend says to throw him out the door. I love little Hades.... He's getting really vicious, though. Should I keep him, or let him go?

[Mommy2many]

Keep him. We all have bad days and sounds like he's had it rough for awhile.

[kibakiba]

Yeah... I really love him, it's just that he envenomed my lip and hand pretty much... Snap bit me the same way, but my lip has never swelled up... My upper lip is so swollen that it's hard to talk. No one loves little Hades except me. Poor guy.

[RedSidedSPR]

Well, does he seem comfortable when your not holding him?

[kibakiba]

He does, he just hangs out and basks in the hot area, and goes under the substrate when he sleeps.

[katach]

Are you ok? I say you put him on restriction for a week. That'll teach him.

[kibakiba]

I'm okay, just a bit of swelling and soreness on my lip and hands.

I think he'd like it if I never touched him again, so I don't know about a restriction ;)

[katach]

hmmm, a stern talking to...

[kibakiba]

Hah, how much you want to bet that he wouldn't listen to me? ;)

[katach]

Solitary?...

[kibakiba]

He's already solitary. ;)

[katach]

I'm out of ideas. Oooo bribery!!

[kibakiba]

Haha, maybe that'll work... "If you don't bite me like that for 6 years, I will give you all the worms you can handle!!!!" :D

[katach]

There ya go! Seems to work with my sister's step-kids! If you behave I won't kill you!!!! :D