Bitis arietans Photo

I came across this photo while sorting through photo files on my computer. I had this male for several years, but could never find a suitable female.

Bitis arietans Photo CPuff4

NICE !
Never saw arietans this yellow... Smile

Pascal.

I was told he was a "Cape" locality Puff Adder. I've seen many sold as "Cape" locality and most had little to no yellow.

A few years ago, someone stole that photo from my old Venom Street website, and advertised their Puff Adder for sale on Kingsnake and used my photo. I emailed the guy from a different email address so he wouldn't recognize me, and asked about his snake. He led me to believe that it was his snake in that photo. Then I told him it was my photo that he stole. He apologized and said his male looks just like that, but he doesn't have a camera. He took his ad down. I never did see a photo of his.

I bought a Yellow Puff Adder from Mardi Snipes, that was quite yellow, but he was a pale yellow with black and brown markings. Pretty nice, but like this guy.

What do you think about these juvenile puff adders?
Bitis arietans Photo Ariets10

Peter

Ah Peter seen some before of this scaleless bitis.
If I realy honest I would´nt keep such kind of mutants.
But what I wanna know is how they feel. *g*

Peter Zürcher wrote:: What do you think about these juvenile puff adders?

Straight in the freezer... Mad

Sorry, but dysfunctional mutants are just not my cup of tea.

When I first moved to Florida a couple years ago, I went to Glades Herps. Robbie Keszey had some scaleless Puffs. They look and probably feel silky smooth. I think Rob wanted something like $2500 each for them. Not my cup of tea either,

Quote :: Straight in the freezer...

That's the way they're going anyway!
but after their "natural" death, because in my country it's against the law to kill vertebrates this way.
I never did any efforts to produce these freaks, it just happened.
So what to do once the young were here, surprising me completely? Should I lough or cry?
On one side, I had animals with more defects then only lack of scales, on the other side many people who wanted them, ready to pay good money!
A difficult decision, as I'm not in the situation to throw away money that easy ( and we're talking about a thousand dollars for one specimen!)
So what to do? To abdicate on big money or to sell my soul, if you know what I mean?
First of all, I decided not to breed anymore and separated the couple, this decision has been supported by the death of the female one year ago.
I sold some of the possible hets to different people, for a normal puff adder price.
I sold some of the scaleless specimens to two well known people, for much less money other interested herpetoculturist woul have payed.
But there are interesting facts in this "accident" too:
First, I believe this defect to be recessive. I had 44 young, 11 of'em were scaleless, showing up the Mendelian rules exactly (if the parents were heterozygous).
In the scaleless specimens, no handicap was visible in moving, eating or shedding.
Most of these animals died already, there are only three possible hets in my possesion at this time; they eat regularly, but they do'nt grow, and they die without any visible reason; I think there must be additional defects beside the lack of scales.
Anyway, these freaks does'nt seem to reach maturity, that means "end of the line", and that's okay!
It's not my coup of tea either, but somehow it was a interesting occurence.
Cheers
Peter

Peter,

I can understand your dilemma very well (despite what may have seemed like harsh words in my resonse) - if I could raise the money for a field trip by selling involuntarily produced mutants, I would find it hard to say no!

And I am also aware of the fact that freezing a reptile is not a kind way to kill it, and not one I would use, but I used the phrase since the practice is unfortunately still common in herpetoculture, and something many reasers will be able to relate to.

Cheers,

WW

Wolfgang,

I've been asking the members here for their position and I did not have any problem with your clear statement, quite the contrary i expected it from you and other members here that way.
My own statement was done in order to avoid the possible impression of beeing proud of it.

The fact, how many people have been ready to pay 10 or 20 times as much for a defect creature than for a normal, healthy one, was a frightening experience.

Greetings from Austria
Peter

Peter,

there are many defect humans around as well...
would love to put them straight in to the freezer as well... Wink

i find your patternless Bitis cute looking, nothing wrong with it! lets take a look at the burmese pythons, the ball pythons, all the cornsnakes, all the intermediate ratsnakes. or just check our closest friends, canis lupus *domesticus*, havnt humas changed and domesticated wildlife as long they exist? what about all the different kind of rabbits, birds and fish, who only occur in captivity?

i mean - its not my thing, all this morphs and mutants but, if folks like them better? why not, they might stop taking the "ugly ones" from the wild (who would catch a Burmese pythons from the wild?), who knows! maybe all this color-morphs and mutants gonna safe one time their relatives in the wild? noh? and as long they will not be introduced back into their original habitats, who harms anything? if a nice colored bearded dragon as pet in new york helps to raise awareness for reptilians in kids, isnt that somethings good? all the australian lovebirds breeds in their cages around the world dont harm no one at all.

as long as their are enough folks interested in their natural ancestors, is it fine with me.

just my 2 cents!

cheers
Mario

Quote :: i find your patternless Bitis cute looking,

They are (were) not patternless (that would be okay), but completely scaleless, Mario.
and yes, they look cute, but there were additional problems making them not viable.

I remember a swiss herpetologist (Henry KRATZER), who owned a group of almost scaleless Vipera ammodytes. These animals were already adult when I had the opportunity to see them in the late 80ies and lived for about 15 years. Due to some remaining scales, I guess, shedding was very difficult and impossible without a "helping hand". As far as I know, no breeding experiments were done.

I know from some US scaleless rat snake stock, and the phenomena is wellknown in Crotalus atrox too.

I think there are problems enough already, created by unserious people who breed together what should not been bred. One of the recent threads here, the confusion atra/kaouthia, is just one example.

To be honest, I must say the world does'nt need any scaleless snakes, but it's okay and important to talk about it.

Cheers
Peter

scaleless, thats what i meant - sorry for the confusion

Hello Randy!

Maybe you didn´t found any suitable female for him, because you searches for the wrong locality. This male is defenitly NOT from SA. This is a typical male Puffadder from DRC (former Zaire). I had a almost same male for several years as well, but couldn´t found a suitable female for him, as my female died a week later I got him. Bad luck.
Maybe with this information you can find some new ones.

Best wishes

Frank

i had a male, similar from Tanzania...

i would love to see some more picture from different (proofen) localitys...

cheers
Mario

Thanks for the info Frank. The guy I bought that male from told me it was a "Cape" Puff Adder. I saw other "Cape" Puff Adders for sale, but none looked like my male. I did look at all Puffs in classifieds, just never saw anything like him.

Interesting thread with some logical interaction about Bitis arietans,
and apparently im late to the show but i did view these in the past on Glades herp pricelist.

I purchased this beautiful snake from my friend Tommy Crutchfileld. It is of Namibian origin. Bitis arietans Photo P1010242

hi one question... do you anything paper or information about the other species of snakes borning scaleless??? i'm very interesant... first time i look see.... amazing... and excuse me for my dab english...

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