Favorite Reptiles to Watch

Out of all the reptiles you own, what’s your favorite to watch? For me, it’s for sure my hognose. He doesn’t move as much when I’m close to his enclosure, but if I sit on the chair on the opposite side of the room, I can always see him slithering around, and it is SO cute :heart_eyes:

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My white line gecko. He hides all day and only comes out at night. So sometimes I’ll turn off all but the dimmest light and watch him run around the glass on the enclosure and jump around inside.

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My 6-7 foot male normal bci, he has a straight up and down cage with a big piece of driftwood to climb on and is always going up and down it.

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I love to watching my boas as they are pretty confident so they come out quite a lot.

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Aquatic turtles. Painteds, spotteds, terrapins… They look like birds in the sky when they are swimming. Plus, when I look in their eyes, I’m convinced they are smarter than most people!

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I love watching my ackie moniter roam about his entire enclosure as he uses every single inch of space, climbing, running, soaking, basking, he does it all. Second would definitely be my tree frogs, I love the way the subtly communicate with each other, though they can be very loud if they wish. I also live watching my fish, though I know it is not a reptile, super cool and interesting animals.

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My favorite is either my Malpolon Moilensis or my male retic. They both are the most active and show insane levels of intelligence that keep me on my toes. My moilensis are WC and show a ton of natural behaviors, on top of watching us humans go about our daily lives. Something I rarely see in most captive born/bred animals. If they aren’t doing their snake things, they watch my every move while I’m in the room. It seems they watch me as much as I watch them.

My retic on the other hand is boring in comparison, but still keeps me entertained by his own behavior. He does the normal snake basking/climbing/resting/anticipation of food while in his terrarium, but when I open the door occasionally, he’s the most trusted. He comes out, goes straight to his box (I have a regular cardboard box in the corner of the room with a little cut out entrance for him) and takes a nap, then goes back into his own enclosure himself when he gets bored or too cold.

For clarification, he does not free range and he is always under close supervision!
I let him out once in a while, while I’m cleaning enclosures since I’m still waiting on a much larger viv from AP. So it’s to give him exercise and for mental stimulation. And he’s definitely the most reliable. Very confident and easy going and never tries to go anywhere he shouldn’t.

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I gotta hear more about these! For clarification, these are false cobras, right?

It’s between the Malpolon insignitus + M. monspessulanus, and Rhamphiophis rostratus. The groups I have are a mix of LTC WC and CBB, but they’re all very interested in whatever I do inside the reptile room. They’re always up to something, and if they’re sleeping they wake up quickly to see what’s going on. They’ll even to follow me as I move around, and try to peep around the corners of their glass doors (to no success).

Scaphiophis are fun too in their own way. They were definitely more wary and defensive a year or so ago when I first got them, but they’re now comfortable enough with me in that they’ll bask out in the open and watch me as well. If I open the cage doors and tap on the substrate, my adults will come out to be handled. But they too are almost up to something - burrowing, digging pits, or climbing.

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Yes! The common name is Egyptian False Cobras. Be cautious when working with them as their venom is almost completely undocumented (if I had a glass for every time I read “unknown” or “unlikey” while looking at the toxicology site…)

They are very fast, hard to hook, blindly strike around like an actual cobra when they smell food, very temperamental, highly intelligent, and did I mention fast and hard to handle? Very fun species though!

My milk snake. She is very active and I love the way the red looks when she is crawling around the wood

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Lol they sound awesome! Pretty great alternative for a real cobra?

I love Milks! Pictures? Please?

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Absolutely, as long as you notice some major differences in size and care. Moilensis are generally the size of a very large garter snake.

If you want something the size of a Naja Naja, I’d get a FWC/Hydrodynastes Gigas. Plus the venom of a FWC is way more documented if you make a mistake.

Now about care, moilensis is more closer in care to anything that lives in the heart of the desert. Sandfish skink for instance. They need heat and a lot of it. Hot side being a little over 100 and slowly get to room temp by the other side of the enclosure. They also love to dig deep tunnels and will get nose rub if not kept in large deep vivs where they can roam and dig. (This is my limited experience in keeping a pair. This is by no means a care guide as there was little info when they were first imported. So I mimicked their native habitat down to a science. The more we learn from them over the coming years, the more we can update this later)

I personally chose the cold end as being room temp because of very sharp temperature drops deep in the burrows that you can’t mimic perfectly in captivity because it’s going to be much more shallow than in the wild.

Despite being the size of a very large garter snake at best, they need room. And will use every ounce of space given to them. I’d personally use 4ft x 2ft as a bare minimum. And I’m making plans after my retics get their adult vivs to move mine into a 6ft or 8ft.

In summary, moilensis is perfect. They hood up straight, they have nasty attitudes, hard to hook so makes good practice, I’d definitely say it’s like owning a “toy sized” cobra. With allot of “small dog syndrome”. But for someone that wants the size and appearance of a cobra, and isn’t ready to make the jump into undocumented venom territory (we use to think the boomslang was harmless too until fatalities happened. So it’s unlikely, but still a good chance that moilensis is more dangerous than we think. So tread with caution.), definitely just get a H. Gigas.

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All I can say is wow! I was not expecting such a wonderful response! Thank you, I have been looking at FWCs and these guys for some time. I will probably go with a FWC based on size but I liked the idea of the additional spunk of the Moilensis. Also, I can FWCs in morphs lol.

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My Mexican black King is my favorite. Almost always on the move

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We love to watch our MBK too!