# Gonyosoma prasinum (and possible alternatives)



## JeffTheExodon (11 mo ago)

I'm currently looking at building a 120x60x120cm (4x2x4ft) vivarium, for a (semi-) arboreal colubrid in the 120-150cm (~4-5ft) range.

Gonyosoma prasinum is my current favorite. They're absolutley gorgeous, a nice size and from what I've heard captive bred ones (which would be a must) are pretty solid.

On one hand I'd really appreciate it if any of you would like to share your experience, tips, opinions, etc. with/on this snake.

On the other hand, I'm also looking at other species that fit my criteria and I'd love to hear any recommendations you might think of. The main other species I was considering would be Simalia nauta, thetanimbar scrub pyhton (I know not a colubrid...). However, my main concern is that I've seen wildly different size average with these, so not sure if they'd even be an option.

Reading through this forum has been incredibly helpful in the past, so I appreciate any input you all might have


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

You could look at Rhino rats and barons racers.
You are far more likely to find these than prasinum. 
That said, if your heart is set on this species then go for it. 
I spent years and years looking for cb Mexican hognoses, and eventually found a pair.
Hard to find species are out there, it just takes time to get them.


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## JeffTheExodon (11 mo ago)

ian14 said:


> You could look at Rhino rats and barons racers.
> You are far more likely to find these than prasinum.
> That said, if your heart is set on this species then go for it.
> I spent years and years looking for cb Mexican hognoses, and eventually found a pair.
> Hard to find species are out there, it just takes time to get them.


Yeah their rarity is a big part of the reason, I've been interested in at least knowing what else is out there. However, I've seen them pop up occasionally on sites like Terraristik.com and as you said some things are worth waiting for.

Personally not the biggest fan of rhino rats, at least their looks. I just don't find the horn that "attractive" (but of course all a matter of taste).

I've only very recently started looking into barons racers, particularly after a friend showed me a picture of a gorgeous blue phase, he saw at an expo. Although, I do admit as of yet I don't know that much about them. Is there a particular care guide/book/video/etc. about them, that you'd recommend?

Edit: Size would be my biggest concern with barons racers. So far I've read that females can reach up to 180-2m in length. This may be a problem as here in Austria we have minimum enclosure guideline for reptiles. And for "climbing" snakes measuring 150-200cm in length, that would be 1.2m² and 1.5m in height (for 1-2 individuals). And unfortunately I won't be able to increase the height of my enclosure. Do you know if males would be likely to stay under or at least around 150cm?


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

JeffTheExodon said:


> Yeah their rarity is a big part of the reason, I've been interested in at least knowing what else is out there. However, I've seen them pop up occasionally on sites like Terraristik.com and as you said some things are worth waiting for.
> 
> Personally not the biggest fan of rhino rats, at least their looks. I just don't find the horn that "attractive" (but of course all a matter of taste).
> 
> ...


Oh, sorry, didn't know about that. Females are big. Males are also a good size but slender. Bear in mind too that they are a rear fanged venomous species. 
If you are set on prasinum, then keep searching. You'll find a pair soon.


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## Thrasops (Apr 15, 2008)

I would wait for the _G. prasinum_ (actually a lot of the specimens in the hobby are the newly assigned _G. coelureum_, which are the ones with blue eyes - which was split in 2021). They are rare but they do pop up from time to time and are almost guaranteed to be CB. I have both species and breed them occasionally, I do not know how common they are in Austria but in Europe they certainly are fairly widely kept and often turn up at the shows. Price seems to fluctuate a lot though, I have seen babies as low as e60 each and as high as e400.

With regards to experiences with them... yes. I will repost some comments I have made about them in the past. They are hardy snakes once the babies start feeding by themselves. 

Mine started out as very shy babies that would not bite, but have become quite defensive adults that strike if bothered. They area also one of the few snakes I keep that will happily launch themselves out of their enclosures and into thin air (the other being Flying snakes). I keep mine at head height so they can and will launch themselves into space if you open the viv and disturb them too much. Last time this happened when I had my snake room full of my wife's Chinese guests. Never seen so many people exit a room so quickly lmao.
They can be stressy snakes that dislike being disturbed so I keep mine in a room that is rarely disturbed.

They don't like high ambient temperatures so should not be kept in the average snake room if it is too hot; room temperature is fine, with a LOCALISED basking spot approaching about 28-30c. If it gets hotter than this they will burrow and hide and never be seen, or curl up in the water bowl. They do need that localised basking spot though as they will bask. In the wild this is a species is found in cool, montane habitats and is extremely hard to find (I know, I've looked).

They prefer small prey so fuzzies and small mice are preferred, large specimens will handle adult mice and quail chicks but they seem to prefer multiple small prey to one large prey item.

While they do hide a lot and can be secretive if disturbed, they are active and if left alone in a quiet room they will climb about a lot, so the size terrarium you have described would be fine for a pair of adults despite the fact they are quite small snakes. Exo Terras or similar glass vivs are ideal as they let you shine a nice spotlight through the mesh to create a good basking spot in the canopy, but the rest of the viv will not over heat.

They seem to have delicate skin and can be prone to dehydration so I would recommend always providing a box full of moist coco coir and sphagnum moss as a humid hide, and spray them daily. The viv should not be dripping wet though.

Other than that they are actually not difficult snakes to keep, particularly if you have an established specimen (newborn babies can be nightmares to get feeding regularly) and they are bred quite often. In Europe they go much more cheaply than here in the UK. I would certainly recommend them as beautiful and intriguing snakes.

Here are some photos of mine.


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## Thrasops (Apr 15, 2008)

With regards to alternative species, I would suggest other mid-sized rat snakes such as Aesculapian snakes (_Zamenis longissimus_), although I am not sure what the laws are regarding keeping native species in Austria; or Japanese rat snakes (_Elaphe climacophora_) both of which are much better display animals than _Gonyosoma_ once they have grown up.

_Psammophis schokari_ or _Psammophis sibilans_ (or related species such as _P. occidentalis_) will spend a lot of time climbing and also are great display animals. These are harder to find captive bred though.

Smaller _Boiga_ such as _B. multomaculata_ would fit well but are mainly nocturnal.

Flying snakes, _Chrysopelea_ (in particular _C. ornata_ which is more adaptable), are another beautiful choice but again getting very hard to locate.

If you like small green snakes, there is a very small but growing community of people in Europe breeding _Hapsidophrys smaragdinus_, it is tightly knit but babies are trickling into the hobby and my friend Christian D'Felio in the USA was able to source some CB babies last year from them.

Just a very few suggestions out of hundreds of potential species.


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## JeffTheExodon (11 mo ago)

Thrasops said:


> I would wait for the _G. prasinum_ (actually a lot of the specimens in the hobby are the newly assigned _G. coelureum_, which are the ones with blue eyes - which was split in 2021). They are rare but they do pop up from time to time and are almost guaranteed to be CB. I have both species and breed them occasionally, I do not know how common they are in Austria but in Europe they certainly are fairly widely kept and often turn up at the shows. Price seems to fluctuate a lot though, I have seen babies as low as e60 each and as high as e400.
> 
> With regards to experiences with them... yes. I will repost some comments I have made about them in the past. They are hardy snakes once the babies start feeding by themselves.
> 
> ...


First of all huge thanks for all the information and pictures (beautiful animals you have there).

Great that you mentioned blue eyed specimens, as I wondered about that. I've seen some adds where they were just advertised as "blue eyed variety" or similar and wasn't quite sure if it was a locality/phase etc. 

We don't have the biggest reptile scene here in Austria (at least when it comes to breeding). On one hand we're a fairly small country but the general attitude is also very much against reptile keeping. For example, for a while now it's been illegal to bring/sell reptiles at expos. Which makes it much harder to connect with/find breeders. I've been mostly looking at germany and hoping to visit some expos, now that it's safer and easier to travel again. I did notice that prices seemed to be all over the place, at last on the few ads I saw on different sites, but couldn't really figure out why. 

Since you mentioned glass vivs. I'll likely built this one myself and worked with both glass and wooden ones before. Would you'd recommend going for glass over a (sealed) wooden one? 

Everything else you said pretty much lines up with what I've researched so far, so good to hear some confirmation. 

Regarding your recommendations for other species:

Thanks a lot for mentioning Zamenis longissimus. Almost forgot about them. I considered intitially them but I was unsure about brumation. I read very differing opinions on how necessary it was and I'm not sure if I could provide the low temperatures required. I think I saw one of your comments in a thread of yours, where you mentioned yours coming out of brumation. Would you mind sharing a bit on how you do it? 

Don't really know much about the other species you mentioned, so I'll need to do some research. 

Thanks again for all the information, you've been incredibly helpful.


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## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

I have kept and bred aesculapians. Brumation is very straight forward. I stopped feeding mid October, and left them for 2 weeks at normal temperature. Then over about 2 weeks I gradually reduced the temperature and daylight hours until they were down to room temperature (my snakes were in an unheated room). They were then placed in separate small dark boxes with a water bowl and kept in the dark for 3 months at around 10C. After 3 months I reversed the process. Gave them a small meal once up to normal temperatures, made sure the female was in a good condition then introduced the male.


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## JeffTheExodon (11 mo ago)

ian14 said:


> I have kept and bred aesculapians. Brumation is very straight forward. I stopped feeding mid October, and left them for 2 weeks at normal temperature. Then over about 2 weeks I gradually reduced the temperature and daylight hours until they were down to room temperature (my snakes were in an unheated room). They were then placed in separate small dark boxes with a water bowl and kept in the dark for 3 months at around 10C. After 3 months I reversed the process. Gave them a small meal once up to normal temperatures, made sure the female was in a good condition then introduced the male.


Wow almost perfect timing, just read through an older thread where I saw your comments about them. 

While I'm not sure I could provide low enough temperatures in my apartment (as it's fairly small and would be likely be heated in winter), our building does have a cellar where each apartment has a it's own seperated "compartment". Temperatures there would likely be cool enough, just not sure I'd be comfortable putting the snake down there alone for several months. However it's definitely something I'm gonna think about.

Thanks for outlining your process.


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## Thrasops (Apr 15, 2008)

JeffTheExodon said:


> First of all huge thanks for all the information and pictures (beautiful animals you have there).
> 
> Great that you mentioned blue eyed specimens, as I wondered about that. I've seen some adds where they were just advertised as "blue eyed variety" or similar and wasn't quite sure if it was a locality/phase etc.
> 
> ...


No worries!

To be honest for an enclosure as large as the one you quoted I would not think it matters whether it is made of wood or glass; as long as there is sufficient ventilation it will not be difficult to create some localised hot spots without increasing the ambients to much. You will want to seal the wood with varnish though as the environment will need to be relatively humid. A good person to talk to would be Roman Astheimer on here as he makes some beautiful large vivs.

Aesculapian snakes are fantastic snakes, they may look fairly dull but once they are past the shy juvenile stage are very personable and spend a lot of their time climbing and in view so can be a good display animal.

Brumation is certainly recommended in this species; in fact it is one of the best ways to get neonates feeding the following year as late hatching specimens can otherwise not be good about taking food before a winter rest. So definitely something I strongly advocate for all _Zamenis_.

The way I go about it is similar to what Ian14 outlined above. I have outlined general methods in the past here:

reptiletalk.net/brumation-guide/?fbclid=IwAR0mQjwIDgwXO1lpTD7VKD1EC-EdyRmCPRSvKiJ5QnjcrGRTQNs4E85cTUw

I also talk about brumation in this video:






I put animals into thermostatically controlled fridges, and larger cold-tolerant species out in a shed in my Mother's garden. The latter is less reliable but I do not have fridges big enough for 7ft Russian and King rat snakes.

Hope this helps.


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## JeffTheExodon (11 mo ago)

Thrasops said:


> No worries!
> 
> To be honest for an enclosure as large as the one you quoted I would not think it matters whether it is made of wood or glass; as long as there is sufficient ventilation it will not be difficult to create some localised hot spots without increasing the ambients to much. You will want to seal the wood with varnish though as the environment will need to be relatively humid. A good person to talk to would be Roman Astheimer on here as he makes some beautiful large vivs.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the video very informative. Glad that you touched on brumatian without intention to breed. As that was something I always wondered about in the back of my mind.

Funny that you should mentioned Roman, as his posts were part of what that initial drew me towards to colubrids in particular. Spilotes sulphureus are among my favorite species, so seeing him show of his massive viv, definitely gave me something to aspire to (although it's still going to be a while until I truly consider of those).

Really appreciate your advice


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