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:



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

[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.