Snakes

SNAKES at Kalrissan

We have to say that one lesson that we have learned along the way is that REPTILES ARE ADDICTIVE! You just can't stop at one. While our dragons are our first love, we have found the joy of snakes, started mostly by our experiences with our rehabilitation of wild snakes. Below are some of our resident captive-bred snakes. We have an example of all 3 Brisbane-area Colubrid Snakes: the Brown Tree Snake, the Green Tree Snake and the Keelback. They share the house with several pythons. All are great training animals and although the younger snakes are getting accustomed to being regularly handled, the older snakes are awesome and always on their best behaviour when out in public.

Morgan

Morgan is a very large male Bredli Python (Morelia bredli). These guys are classed as an arid-zone carpet python, found in central Australia. Morgan, as his species is described in all the books, is a typically well-mannered python and has never bitten. He is an absolute delight to own and often comes to training to demonstrate snake handling.

FINLAY

Finlay is a young male Jag and is beautifully coloured. He is very stable dude and free from any neurological defect. He is growing nicely and will be bred eventually to Slade, our female Jag once old enough.

HUDSON

Hudson is the most delightful Python and was rescued from a terrible situation. He was very emaciated and dehydrated when he came and very small for age. He had been kept in terrible conditions and it took 6 months to get him healthy. He has not looked back though and despite his early poor start, has the best temperament and is a very gentle and obliging python. In fact, at training days, he is always found chilling out on someone's lap or sitting in the audience on his very own hot pack or happily draped over a chair!! He loves it and will sit for hours and take it all in.

PELLA

Pella is a young Woma python and whilst, she is cranky most days (like many young pythons), with handling, she is beginning to settle. She will eventually join the ranks as a training python, but for now needs a bit of work and time to grow.

Slade is growing well now and is a very beautiful snake.

BOGGLES

Boggles is a young Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis) and is currently being prepared for his duties as a training snake. As he is venomous (mildly), he is only handled by us at present. So far he is behaving himself beautifully.

Tamar is the most delightful Children's Python and an invaluable member of the Reptile A-Team. She is bomb-proof and is our main training snake at all sorts of events. She will tolerate the endless parade of people at our training days and endures the indignities of bandaging demonstrations and doppler training for new and experienced reptile rehabilitators and rescuers. nothing is too much trouble for this girl - she loves her time out with her peeps!!

ANDI is a large female Bredli Python with an amazing temperament - she is one of our main training animals and loves her time out at education days. She is very calm and tolerant of all people, including those who have strong fears of snakes - she has changed more than a few attitudes about snakes in her time.

Common Tree Snakes (Tesler & Magnus)

Magnus at 12 months of age

These two guys are great. They are Common Tree Snakes (Dendrelaphis punctulata) and hopefully will be blue-morphs as adults. Already, we can see the distinct blue hue developing (on one more than the other at this stage).

As you can see from these shots, Magnus has transformed into the most beautiful BLUE tree snake. We were hoping he would and he has - just like his mum. We hope to breed blue-phase Common Tree Snakes in the future.

ROUSH

Roush is a Keelback (Tropidonophis mairii). Typical of her species, she is very secretive. Keelbacks are gentle in nature and are not to be confused with the Rough-Scaled snake, for which, it is often mistaken - this mistake can be deadly as the Roughy is a highly venomous and can be a very aggressive snake, whereas the Keelback is non-venomous and very gentle (usually).