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Progression thread: Normal Cape African house snake

I've noticed that some days Clyde is more chocolate brown and other days he is more golden brown. And it's not just the lighting or having just shed, though he's more likely to be golden after a shed. Anyway today he was golden brown, very shiny, and sat still just long enough...

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I love dark chocolate, but I doubt Clyde will ever see that shade! I wonder if snakes 'blush' or change with heart rate ... or something? Strange that they take on different shades once in a while.
 
Yeah, it's really interesting. At first I thought I was going a little crazy, but I do believe his color actually changes. By what mechanism and what it means I don't know. In person, I can tell the difference between camera affects, lighting, and the actual color of the snake.
 
Many of the boa species do have color change cycles, between sheds and even during the day and at night, I forget what it's called though.

Like the Brazilian Rainbow boas' sides up about half way, are dark with an over wash of melanin in the daytime but it clears up at night and their bullseye white and yellow markings glow, they call that showing their "whitewalls" and it's thought to help absorb or disperse heat, I believe.
 
Interesting about the boas Tavia!

He definitely changes color. I had thought Clyde was getting darker as he grew because I haven't seen this lighter golden brown color for a while, and then when I went to get him out for his outing today he was not milk chocolate, but like Karl said, more like Werther's.

There certainly is a whole lot more study that needs to be done on snakes. I'm not sure that much has been done on Boaedon (or Lamprophis) at all. In fact they still can't even decide on the taxonomy. I've seen at least three completely different taxonomies, two of which don't have them as colubrids!
 
Sorry to have to tell you this, but after looking at this last photo it's obvious I think ... Clyde has a bad case of 'Turtleitis'. Not sure what can be done about it!
 
Sorry to have to tell you this, but after looking at this last photo it's obvious I think ... Clyde has a bad case of 'Turtleitis'. Not sure what can be done about it!

Here's the cure, Ken, lol. We had a little Clyde outing.

According to the calendar, Clyde is 8 days out from a shed. I'm thinking he's showing some early signs. Today, he definitely looked Hershey bar brown.

He is back now happily curled up in his humid hide.

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I woke up to Clyde's shed this morning. He's in his hide sleeping so no pics of the little guy for now, though I did disturb him just slightly to change his reptile carpet and clean the glass. Needless to say he pooped, this time several hours prior to the shed.

It was a perfect little shed, but tail was firmly stuck to some mopani wood and I broke it. It was dry when I found it this morning and stuck to decor in more than one place. I didn't try to unfold or unstick it from itself. The top of the head is folded over and dried in that position.

So big night with two out of my three snakes shedding. First time that's ever happened!

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Clyde in his shiny new skin this morning :)

He didn't want to sit still, but when he did I was able to get a few good pictures.

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Very nice! I love that last one!

Thank you. That's my favorite from today, too.

The lighting and hence the color is not as good for this one, but I accidentally forgot to put the leaves in front of the door so was able to get one of Clyde in his hide a few minutes ago.

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