T. eques cuitzeoensis behaviour

[guidofatherof5]

Spill it all Chris.

[EasternGirl]

Just to answer one of your questions...Cee Cee, my eastern female, soaks in her water dish before a shed. I have not seen Seeley or Hermes do it...I have seen them swim around in their water dishes a bit before a shed...but Cee Cee will actually sit in her dish for long spells before a shed. I have seen her sitting in her dish for several hours right before she sheds. Thanks for the update...always enjoy reading them!

[chris-uk]

I've still not had the chance to transfer the pics Steve wanted to see from my camera (been busy with work and lots going on other than the snakes, yes I suffer from thamnophisphilia but still have other things to do). The photos will come, I promise Steve.

Just thought I'd quickly share that Lacrimosa gave me my first nibble today. I think I've mentioned that she will come out of her hide to check out my fingers and hand, and I've always had the uneasy feeling that she's trying to work out if I'm food or not. Today, after I fed her a leftover pinky head she went hunting around her viv for more, and I left both hands in the viv as an opportunity for her to become more accustomed to me. Five minutes later, she had been all round the viv and approached my hand through one of her kitchen towel tubes, came up to my fingers and flicked at them with her tongue, then rested her nose on my index finger for a second before drawing back and slowly biting down on my finger as I was moving it away.
Either she was finally checking whether my fingers were edible, or it's an incident like Steve had a month or so back where his radix (I think it was the Enforcer?) struck at his nose a couple of times because he hadn't brought enough food. I like to think Lacrimosa was telling me off for not bringing her more than a single pinky head (I'd intended it for Vlad anyway), but more likely I still had a bit of salmon/pinky smell on my fingers despite having washed my hands after chopping the little ones' food.

[EasternGirl]

Cee Cee attempts that every single time I feed her now. I think she is just crazed over food and trying to eat everything in sight. She also tries to eat the dish the food is in, the plants, the log hide, and the glass tank walls!

[guidofatherof5]

Cee Cee attempts that every single time I feed her now. I think she is just crazed over food and trying to eat everything in sight. She also tries to eat the dish the food is in, the plants, the log hide, and the glass tank walls!

Good survival skills.

[BUSHSNAKE]

Cee Cee attempts that every single time I feed her now. I think she is just crazed over food and trying to eat everything in sight. She also tries to eat the dish the food is in, the plants, the log hide, and the glass tank walls!

Marnie, is that the female that bred? increase in appitite is a sign a female is gravid

[chris-uk]

Okay, as Steve knows I've been sitting on this for almost two weeks. Hopefully it won't re-open the debate about whether our Cuitzeos are large enough to mate. We decided to put them back in together because both of them seemed to be a lot more miserable on their own, especially Vlad. Vlad had become very reclusive and very jumpy since they'd been separated. Lacky is now heavier than many females of other species when they are sexually mature, and going from information in the Connant article where he describes discovering the Cuitzeo's, she is also the same size as the gravid sample he captured. Maybe another year would find her better sized to breed, but I really think that neither of them were thriving in isolation so the chance that she may become gravid earlier than ideal is a small price to pay for two happier snakes.

Initially we just intended to give Vlad half an hour with Lacrimosa as a "supervised visit" because Char had brought him up to the office and he and Lacky were showing signs of recognition through the glass.
So we let Vlad into Lacky's viv and within 30 seconds they were all over each other. Literally 2 minutes later we realised that they'd actually locked up, I'd expected a period of courting before we'd have to separate them but it was too late.
So we watched them for an hour, and during the end phase I felt sorry for Vlad and tried to steer Lacky away from some of the tighter spaces in her viv where it would be more difficult for Vlad to keep up with the twists.
Anyway, they disengaged, and I could see Vlad's manhood hanging out for all to see and snapped some photos while he was over the water bowl. I also have to confess to having had a feel of Vlad's manhood, so I can describe the texture as well as showing you the photos Steve asked for a couple of weeks ago...






You can clearly see some of the spikes that keep the male in place during mating. The whole hemipenis (yes, the photo does just show one hemipenis, not both hemipenes) has a surface texture a bit like a lychee skin, you can see the smaller spikes over the whole surface. The other way I've described it is like a medieval mace, a big spiky ball. In both photos you can see two larger spikes these feel like they have something sharp bony under the surface, a bit like a cocktail stick. These two spikes are obviously the main anchors for securing the hemipenis for semen delivery, but I'm sure the smaller spikes also help keep it in place. You can see that there is a bit of blood on the larger spikes, obviously from Lacky (I checked her immediately as well and she showed no signs of injury or bleeding from the vent).
It took Vlad about 2 minutes to retract the hemipenis, and while he was pulling it back in I spotted a small piece of aspen that I picked off, while I held him off the substrate. I think that is something to bear in mind during mating, I don't know if the substrate would have come off before the hemipenis was retracted, but there has to be a small risk that substrate will be pulled into the male's inverted hemipenis.
The big white glob you can see in the photos is clearly snake semen. There was no sign of a semen plug in Lacky, so it looks like Cuitzeos are one of the majority of species that don't use a plug to prevent other males mating with a recently inseminated female.

I wanted to share these photos with you because I'm aware that there aren't too many photos of mature, healthy, hemipenes around. Most of the photos I've seen online are either babies being popped, or injured hemipenes. Interesting to see that the Cuitzeo has quite a bulbous hemipenis, if you check "The Text Book" it doesn't look entirely like any of the 3 different examples the book shows but a little like the shorter example.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this with you.

[guidofatherof5]

Medieval torture/pleasure device looking thing.
As long as it gets the job done and you have some beautiful little scrubs in the end.
Thanks for posting the photos Chris.

[EasternGirl]

For the love of all that is holy...I just went celibate! There are just no words...no words. You know how you men feel when someone discusses getting kicked in the jewels? That is the theoretical pain I am experiencing right now. Or sympathetic pain, you might say...poor Lacrimosa! I had no idea the hemipenis was so large...and you say that is just one? Copulation must be extremely painful for the female. It really does look like a mace.

And Joe...yes, I was speaking of the female that possibly mated with my male. I have noticed the increase in her appetite and how crazy she acts over food...I need to check her weight again.

[mikem]

great pics! thanks for sharing that! and hemipenes are scary. not trying to get off topic here, but if you want to see some close ups of corn snake hemipenes, click here. you can compare it to what you saw and see similarities and differences. scary indeed!