Wow............He is gorgeous. What are the odds of me finding one of those at the All Maryland show in 2 weeks?
Very, very low. That is my snake. I sent him to Don to take a look at since I am not only near sighted, but don't own a great camera. All I could tell is in the photos, his pupils looked slit, and none of his baby pictures were close up enough to tell.
Turns out, he isn't cat-eyed at all, in spite of looking like he is. What that snake has is extreme cataracts and pupil degeneration from UVB exposure. I put fluorescent reptile lights on a rack of snakes for a year to see if they'd appear to benefit from UVB exposure compared to their siblings in unlit racks. All snakes were offered two hides, and for what it's worth, that wasn't one I saw out much. But melanin is in wild reptiles for a reason. It protects their skin and eyes from UV radiation. Two more snakes expressing amel seem to show no eye change that were exposed along with him, so I don't know if it was a fluke or blizzards are more susceptible, which I suspect. Old blizzards often get cloudy eyes, and young blizzards are near transparent and pink.
Moral of this story, don't use UVB lights for North American colubrid snakes.
They could wind up like this:
Good news is, he hasn't missed a beat in the rack of mistfit toys. I can't imagine he can see well, but Don sent him back with a note that said "The only blind snake is a snake with no tongue."
