New Malpolon

@ Fabian,
that is really nice to hear. I keep my fingers crossed cheers

, that you have a potent man there.
By the way, keep the pictures coming, i really enjoy them.

@Christian,
cool man, would be awesome to get a pair or more Wink

, they are so great animals.
To your question; No, i sold them about three years ago to friend ( i thought so). And i am sure they where WC's.

Regards
Ambros

First that came out. 4 have died inside the eggs pale

Well done!

Hi Christian,
cute small fellow came out there I'm sorry for you 4 other ones.
What happened to the 3 last eggs? Hopefully they mad it.

Best Regards
Ambros

@ Ambros

Unfortunately only two of them got out out the eggs. The others have died when trying to cut through the shell of the eggs. The former owner has had several clutches, but all the hatchlings have died inside the eggs.He was quite desperate. Seemed to be a problem of the female producing extremely tough egg shells.

The second hatchling has died after two days. So I have only this one that I have to forcefeed at the moment. I offered some baby geckos but no reaction. At least forcefeeding is very easy because once the prey is between the jaws it starts to swallow itself.

regards, christian

What did you use for incubation...? Vermiculite? When the shells are to thick you can try to use sour substrate !

At the moment I have 2 eggs in incubation and I cross my fingers Twisted Evil

I used fine coconut humus and vermiculite -the guy before tried everything that's possible, even sand; always the same result.

My females stopped feeding and they look quite fatty -hope there's something going on.

I was told, that eggs of Malpolon can be treated like usual colubrids. 28 degres, vermiculite, that's all. 50 days of waiting.

Good luck and send some pics of the eggs.

Regards

That is the setup which I use for my eggs as well.
The trick with sour substrates works well for asian colubrids, with thick egg shells ( so it might work too )
Otherwise it is might be a problem of that pair! Would be nice if you have more luck with them in future...

Hi Fabian

What kind of material did you offer the female to deposit the eggs in?

One of mine is checking the soil and digging stones. I guess I can see the eggs inside the body.

Regards, christian

Hello Christian,

when I bred Malpolon, I used peat (slightly moist)as substrate for incubation. temp. was 28°, duration 58-60 days. I separated the eggs from each other and covered them loosely with slightly humid peat. This brings acidity to the shells.

The females had a box with a small entrance-hole and slightly humid peat inside for egg-laying, they never dropped any eggs outside.

If I have eggs with hard shells I routinely cut them open 1-2 days before they are due to hatch. If you do that, you must be careful not to cut any blood-vessels and you must store the eggs absolutely safe from any flies that might lay their eggs on them. For this I put the boxes with the eggs into a bag and that´s it.

Good luck with further breedings of these wonderful snakes,
Rainer

Hallo Rainer

Thanks for your prompt information!

Hope the lady's going to do her business in the next few days. I have offered her two boxes with slightly humid cocos humus inside; will try to buy some peat tomorrow and fill it into one of the boxes. She's still sneaking around and trying to dig everywhere.

Kind regards, Christian

One thing I forgot to write: All of my Malpolon babies took pinkies quite soon after they had shed for the first time. And they (especially the Tunesian ones) became calm and used to me within a very short time, taking food from the forceps and even crawling upon my hands.

Rainer

The female has laid 4 eggs of which 2 where unfertilised Sad

Unfortunately she hasn't accepted the two boxes I offered. The eggs were under the heated hiding box! So only two of them seem to be okay.

Some monthes ago another female had shown the same behaviour scratch

Maybe they prefer a quite warm place to deposit their eggs?

Christian

By the way: Today the permanent hungry male killed a mouse and dropped it in front of the female (newly shed) hiding in a box. Then the male crawled away and ate a second he'd killed before. When the female was eating he sat nearby but did not try to touch neither the mouse nor the female.

I should install permanent observation camera.

Hello Christian,

that´s a very interesting observation. I have no explanation, nothing has ever been observed that would show a tendency towards social behaviour like feeding in snakes.

Your idea with the camera might help to find out wether this was just accidentally and the male had enough with one mouse or if he presented the mouse to the female.

The boxes I offered for egg-laying had 28°.

I wish you much success with those 2 eggs,
Rainer

My eggs was also laid near by a tree trunk in earth and a bit covered, the box was untouched...
The behaviour you have seen Christian, is known only at Malpolon as far as I know and is called "Brautgeschenk". My male strongly protected the female, only at birth the male became much shier.
I am incubating one egg at vermiculite and one egg at peat, so I will tell you about differences. Both eggs looks quit good at the moment.

Next time I'm going to heat the egg laying boxes up to max. 30 degres Celsius. Hope it'll help.

It's exactly the behaviour de Haan describes and that is shown in a film about M.m. I was very afraid the male could try to tear the mouse away because he usually feeds two, three young mice one after another.

But only once is never. Next time camera will be ready.

Once he killed a mouse and carried it into the hiding box. Then he didn't swallow it, just put it on the ground and left. But the female was not there so I thought he'd like to store Laughing

it for later. Next day the mouse had disappeared.

Christian Schaich wrote:: It's exactly the behaviour de Haan describes and that is shown in a film about M.m. I was very afraid the male could try to tear the mouse away because he usually feeds two, three young mice one after another.

.

You are right...this kind of behavior has been depicted in a film/documentary about M.M (it was shot in south of France, near Nice or Grace town).
But I have never seen myself that kind of act with my own malpolon, born in captivity or WC . My males was more busy to eat every preys than to offer his female a mice !
Good idea to film it btw !

Here the links for all who want to download the film; quality is ok.

http://www.mediafire.com/?j62k6rdju6p362p

and second part:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ogazn7sxlicrx1a

Film is really worth to be watched because it shows the amazing behaviour of this species.

Christian

Thanks Christian for sharing the nice movie. I directly watched it and it´s really worth to be watched

@ Tanja

I'm glad you liked it even though the speaker sometimes is a bit exagerating. I'm still wondering how they did the hunting scenes at the beginning.

Fantastic species and great pics! I absolutely love African colubrids, I have a few Psammophine species that are some of my favorite snakes, as well as the Crotaphopeltis. Good luck with them.

After the male had sloughed off the old skin, he immediately began rubbing himself with the secretion of his nasal glands. The result can be found anywhre on the front panes.

New Malpolon - Page 2 Qyle9glu

This picture explainig the regular traces is from de Haan who's been studying those animals for years

Only once I've seen a female showing the same behavior.

newborn malpolon insignitus after 60 days of waiting

Very nice ! It looks very clear in color comparing to M.monspessulanus monspessulanus!
R.

It's very early the year but obviously one female (and one male Very Happy

) couldn't wait after the hibernation.

This is the first time for me, that a female accepted the box. The box was heated, filled with small-sized gravel lightly moisty, sand and a flat stone on the top. The cavement under the stone has not been accepted as you can see but she spent three days in the box so I was sure things would happen there.

Thanks a lot to all who gave me information about how to breed these I love you

I hope that I can send more pics in about 50 days.

Regards, Christian

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